


Lost in a Moving Dream

by scriboergosums



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Romance, F/M, Lost Love Restored, Mild Language, Minor Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie/Yo Yo Rodriguez, Minor Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse, alternative universe, rekindled friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28665081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriboergosums/pseuds/scriboergosums
Summary: Leopold Fitz is living his Best Life™— he's got his status, his mates, and he's about to pull off a deal at work that will only serve to skyrocket his career even further. But after a spontaneous run in (literally) with a self-proclaimed time traveller spins his life out of control (also literally), Fitz wakes up miles from home with no money, no mates, and next to Jemma Simmons, the school mate he left behind ten years ago.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. "...

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> 
> “You're dreaming, girl, lost in a moving dream.” ― Sophocles, 'Electra'
> 
> I started writing this during the Framework plot (even posted a couple of chapters), but I could never muster a decent enough story to follow through, so I stopped... until season seven introduced time travel / other dimensional travel, and I was intrigued again! Hopefully this time around is a little more coherent.
> 
> Special thanks to besidemethewholedamntime aka Rebecca for her encouragement and general loveliness. She's the absolute best there is!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, call him crazy, but... is he in a _van_?

He’s pretty sure there had been a car crash. 

The splintered windshield, the crunch of bones, the warm trickling down his face. Sirens are wailing, but they are garbled and distant, like he is being plunged underwater. Everything familiar, everything _real_ , is just above the surface.

It’s funny, though. He’d expected to wake up to IV cords in his arms, the blurred outline of loved ones, the sharp jolt of the paddles, and excruciating pain. He’s seated upright when he comes to, though— sitting in a folded chair that’s obviously been left out for too many rainy seasons— and this doesn’t look much like a hospital room. He’s still in his pressed suit, a cup of tea between his hands.

“Maybe this is what comes after,” Fitz ponders, taking a slow slip. He closes his eyes for a moment; it’s sweet and warm. Over the rim of the cup, he looks around him.

A desk sits in the corner, a thin mattress behind him, curtains with pink stripes, a hula girl bobblehead on a shelf. Everything looks so cramped, too. A second glance and Fitz realises he’s sitting in some kind of _car_.

“What the hell...?”

“You don’t like the tea?”

Fitz jumps so violently in his chair, he nearly spills the piping hot liquid down his slacks. He steadies himself and searches for the source of the voice. 

A woman pops her head from behind another curtain — how big _is_ this place, anyway? — like she’s walking in late to a lecture in front of the whole class, and drags the chair from the desk over until it’s in front of him. “Phew, glad that worked,” she says as she sags into the chair and adjusts a tablet in her lap. 

Fitz opens his mouth a couple hundred times, but nothing comes out. 

“Are you okay?” she asks pleasantly. 

“What?” Fitz gapes. 

“Wait, hold on.” She holds up a finger of one hand and writes something on the screen with her other. “Just trying…. to follow… protocol. Sorry.” The girl tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and it’s then that Fitz notices how _young_ she really looks. Geez, she can’t be older than a teenager. “Okay, now answer.”

He can’t seem to make his mouth work. “ _What_?” he manages. 

The girl smirks — she _smirks_ — and her pen dances across the screen. “Chip...per. Trust me, this is more annoying for me than it is for you. I’ll just skip down to…” She swipes at the tablet swiftly. “Oh! Okay, so. Do you remember what happened today before you arrived here?”

“Arrived? Where? What is this?” At least he’s managed to string three words together this time. “Am I — dead?”

The girl waves a hand in the air. “Nah, you should be fine. Maybe. Probably. Think of it more like … a temporary _pause_ on life,” she tells him, smiling like she’s explained it so brilliantly. 

“A pause on life?” Fitz repeats, testing the words. “So… death.”

“ _No_. You’re fine.” He swears he sees her roll her eyes but her long hair drapes in front of her face too quickly to tell. She starts writing something and it’s a moment before she speaks again. “Mostly. So. What do you remember about today?”

Words are not coming to him, he wants to explain, but even that is too hard. When he closes his eyes, though, he finds the fuzziness of his brain slows just a little. “I woke up, worked out a bit. Went to work. Had a meeting with Radcliffe about a project. And then— well, I think—” He opens his eyes wide, frantically, but the girl is too busy writing something down to notice him. “And then I got hit by a car? I remember spinning, and the lights, and then…”

If he is looking for some sort of comfort or reassurance that what he thinks happened didn’t _actually_ happen, he does not find it in the girl’s face.

“Anything else?” she says instead, writing vigorously on the tablet again. She spares a glance at him after a beat and it’s like she’s waiting for him to describe his socks or something, her face passive and unaffected. 

“I was in a crash,” he says. “A _bad_ one,” he enunciates when her face remains unchanged. “Pretty sure I _died_.”

But she’s not even looking at him at this point, swiping and scrolling on whatever is on the tablet with a pensive look. It’s almost like she’s searching for something in his day on that screen. “You’re fine,” she repeats distractedly. She stops scrolling for a second and then looks up at him. “An-y-thing _else_ ,” she says, drawing out every syllable. 

That tablet. There’s something on it. “What do you want me to say, exactly?” Fitz finally asks, leaning forward to try and sneak a look, but she flips the tablet over when she notices and tucks it higher up on her lap. 

“Tell me about your day,” she says easily, far too easily. 

“I told you. Awake, work, dead.”

She does roll her eyes this time. “all right, how about… a different day? Yeah. A day from your past.” The change in her face is so sudden, Fitz is getting more whiplash from this conversation than the car accident. She flashes him a grin and nods thoughtfully. “Tell me about a day in your past.”

This is a little ridiculous. Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Well, _yesterday_ , I woke up, worked out—”

“Let me shrink the window down a little bit,” she interrupts. “Ten years ago, end of May. Straight out of university.” She peaks at the tablet. “May 12th. Tell me about it.”

Fitz sits up, and his heart starts to rattle a little in his chest. He’s not entirely out of whatever fog’s covering his brain, but he’s sure about one thing: this is not a normal conversation. She’s probably not even a teenager. “How do you know when I graduated? Who are you?” 

“Two things to consider,” is all she says, her eyes searching his face. “ _Stark_ or _SciTech_.”

Dread wraps itself around his lungs and makes his next words sound breathy, unmistakably afraid. “How do you… have you been stalking me?”

“...No.” 

“What’s on the tablet?” he demands. “What are you writing about me?”

The colour doubles in her face, but he’s sure she’s not embarrassed. She looks, if anything, more steely and determined. “Calm down, Fitz.”

“How do you even know my name?” He flicks his gaze around the room again, trying to make better sense of all the details, but his mind is racing too fast. “What is this place?” 

“We’re in a safehouse,” she says quickly. Her hand reaches out like she wants to touch him but he shifts in the chair until he’s as far away from her as he can manage. “I’m going to explain everything, but I need you to calm down.”

“Oh, sure, calm down. If I cooperate, you’ll let me go, is that it?” Fitz snaps. The fog from earlier feels like it's slowly evaporating and leaving a trail of hot anger behind. “I’m not saying anything until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Fitz.” She leans forward and grabs onto the arms of his chair. “Who did you see today? Someone you hadn’t seen since you graduated?”

He’s not sure why he listens, or how his brain just immediately goes there, but he shuts his mouth and thinks and _thinks_ —

“What does she have to do with anything?” he manages, his mouth suddenly dry. He hopes the girl doesn’t notice that he can’t even say the name. He _can’t_. He feels like his whole body is shaking just with the thought of it. 

“Pretty much _everything_.” She tucks her hair behind her ears again. “Here’s the truth, Fitz: there’s an order to the universe, and you’ve been messing with it lately.”

He sighs, utterly exhausted. “I don’t know who taught you how to explain things, but this is not how.”

The teenager crosses her arms and sits back in her chair. “I brought you here to help me set things back in order. You’re going to go back and make a different choice after graduation and fix things with her.”

“ _What_?” Fitz balks. “No. I don’t want to make a different choice, I like the life I have.”

“Do you?” she challenges. “You’re kind of an asshole, Fitz. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.” She points to the abandoned cup in his hand. “Finish your tea.”

“Okay.” Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes closed. “Okay. I’m pretty sure I’m _dead_ , but I’ll humour you. You’re talking about going back _ten years ago_ , which is impossible, by the way, and throwing away everything I am, everything I’ve worked for… for _her_? You can’t tell me to do that. If anyone’s an arsehole here, it’s _you_.”

Whatever snap he expects doesn’t come. When Fitz looks up, the girl isn’t looking at him; her eyes are trailing the line of the ceiling, and she pulls her wrist up and glances at a watch that’s glowing blue. Fitz thinks his vision must be shaking for a second, but realises that the room, actually, is shaking. When the teenager catches his eye again, she is wide eyed like him.

“What’s happening?” she says flatly, and that’s about the least comforting thing Fitz has ever heard. She flips over the tablet and flicks at the screen and then does the same to her watch. All the while, the room is shaking so hard, Fitz grips the arms of the chair and the tea falls in a splatter on the floor. 

“This is the part when I die, right?” he all but shouts over the sound of things clambering to the floor. The hula girl flies across the room and nearly smacks him in the face. “What was the point of this?”

“Stop talking!” She tosses the tablet on the desk with a frustrated sound after another minute and stands over Fitz the next instant, and if he’d been afraid of her earlier, he is cowering now. He nearly jumps when she places her hands on his shoulders and steadies him. 

“Listen, we’re out of time,” she tells him, and she seems genuinely sorry for it. “But— look, Fitz, there’s some things that are supposed to happen, Okay? Meant to be, inevitable, rule of thumb stuff, and when they don’t happen… other stuff falls apart. I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen, but I need your help. Okay?”

“What?” Temporary pause on living or not, Fitz’s heart thunders so hard it feels like it truly is about to stop. “No! You’re not making any sense!”

“You have to trust me on this!” is all she says. The lights in the room start to flicker, and her watch is now glowing red. She presses it a few times until it turns yellow and then reaches out to him again. Her face looks far older than before, twisted in seriousness. She nods at him. “Help me, Fitz, you’re my only hope.”

He gapes at her. “Did you just—” 

She slams her palm on her watch. The next second everything shakes, jolting him upright in his seat. He feels the sensation of being pulled backwards for a moment before sound disappears and everything goes black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 What's your favourite Star Wars film? 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr @scriboergosums if you'd like to chat :)


	2. Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A perfect day... followed by a rude awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: there's some mention of a particular pairing... you know the one. This is the _only_ time it's portrayed positively (believe me, it was, as Fitz puts is, the absolute worst to write it). It's so slight and rather ambiguous that I didn't want to tag it, but I wanted to add a warning in case it startles anyone to see it. But I promise, it's none of that nonsense after this!

(Before the Accident)

They have two rules: oxfords, _never_ brogues, and they get _DJ’s Burgers_ after one of them makes a deal.

For Lance Hunter, a deal means conning the business mongrels until he is the one with heavier pockets, and no one from his team ends up behind bars— all with a charming smile, of course. And based on Radcliffe’s stocks and solid, loophole-less legal system, he’s pretty good at it. 

For Fitz, it means a day like today: an impressed group of investors, a proud Radcliffe, and a prototype that took six months of work, sleepless nights, shower-less days and Red Bull by the gallon to put together. _He_ doesn’t look so pretty by the end of it, but the virtual reality simulation glasses in his hands are the nicest things anyone’s ever seen. By the end of it, Fitz can’t tell whether he’s flying because of the energy drink or Radcliffe’s grin of approval.

So it’s just a little disappointing when his best mate is defying the sanctity of _DJ’s_ by being more occupied with his phone than the glorious double cheddar and bacon burger in front of him.

“Fitz, mate, what are you doing tomorrow night?” Hunter asks as Fitz unwraps a burger gently. He doesn’t look up from his screen to see Fitz’s pointed stare.

Fitz chews for a minute, taking his watch off his wrist and pocketing it. “I dunno,” he says, rubbing at the sore skin of his wrist. “I haven’t cleaned my sock drawer in a while.”

Hunter pats blindly at the table before grabbing a chip and nearly misses his mouth when he tries to eat it. “Right, well, do that afterwards. I need you at _The Hub_ at eight.”

“We’re not going to try to get sweet and sour chicken as separate orders again.”

“No, you can get whatever you want,” Hunter insists with a hand wave.

“Can I get you to put your phone down?” Fitz says flatly, reaching forward and placing his hand on top of Hunter’s.

Hunter jerks up in surprise, swiping his hand away in an almost protective manner. “What? Oh.” He nods in understanding when he meets Fitz’s eyes. “Right. Sorry. Congrats, by the way. What’s the selling price?”

“We’re negotiating, but, ten figures. At _least_ ,” Fitz tells him proudly.

“So you’re paying for this, right?” Hunter teases, tossing a chip into the air. His phone beeps, though, so the chip smacks his nose on the way down as Hunter sits up and pulls out his phone again. He just grins at the screen, completely oblivious.

Fitz stares in disbelief, shaking his head after a moment. There’s no use fighting Hunter when he’s engrossed in whatever it is. By the looks of it, it’s something with long legs and a pretty face.

“Alright,” Fitz asks eventually, “what’s at _The Hub_?”

As if he’d said the magic words, Hunter bounces in his seat. “I want you to meet someone.”

“Who?”

Flicking a chip at Fitz, Hunter says, “the bird I’ve been seeing— she’s flying in. I told you about her,” he adds when Fitz’s face remains in post-chip impact grimace.

“Uh,” Fitz starts, playing with the wrapping on the burger. Unfortunately, the name is not magically written on the inside. “The blonde, the good snog, or the demonic hell beast with legs?”

“Yeah. I mean, all of them.”

“ _All_ of them?”

“No, I — it’s all the sa—it’s just the one,” Hunter says, fumbling with his sauce as much as with his words. “Although, don’t mention the last bit to her tomorrow night.”

“Right.” Fitz hides a grin behind his hand as he chews.

“She wasn’t supposed to be in the city for another two weeks, but I guess something with her lease fell through. She’s gonna stay with her old mate until she finds her own place.” Hunter explains this like he’s exhausted by the whole thing. “I’m gonna be honest, I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not? Bobbi’s mate lives four stops from us, and Bob’s great, _really_ great, but we’re kind of … volatile if we’re in the same place for too long, y’know what I mean?”

This is the sort of rant Fitz tunes out after a while, but the name strikes something in him. He looks up. “... Bobbi,” he repeats slowly. 

“Mmhm.”

“Bobbi… _Morse_?”

“Yeah.” 

Fitz frowns. _It could be a coincidence, but_... “What does she look like?”

Hunter’s just taken another bite and swallows quickly. “Well, she’s _maybe_ half an inch taller than me, but she wears heels all the time, it’s bloody annoying.” Another swallow and then, “Blonde hair, green eyes. Big American teeth.” He motions to his mouth and rolls his eyes. “Big mouth, really. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”

“I’ve already met her, actually,” Fitz says, rubbing the back of his neck. At Hunter’s grunt of a question, he lets out a laugh. “Yeah, I was at uni with her.”

Hunter makes a face. “Come off it.”

“No, really. We had a couple of general classes together, and I did PT for my arm”— he waves the very one— “with Bobbi for three months, too.” 

Hunter’s staring at him, giving his undivided attention for the first time since they’ve sat down. “If you’re pulling on my leg, I know where you sleep,” he threatens. “You sure it’s the same Bob I’m talking about? _My_ Bob? I mean— do you know— what’s her favourite colour?”

Fitz laughs. “Do you know what it is?”

Hunter concedes after a moment. “Fair point.”

“It might be blue,” Fitz offers. “She always made me wear it.”

“Bossy even back then, I see,” Hunter nods like Fitz has forked over appropriate and meaningful evidence. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew her? I’ve been talking about Bobbi for months.”

“Well, to be fair, whenever you said you were seeing someone, I thought it was a _different_ someone each time.” Fitz’s grin is all cheeks and teeth when he dodges Hunter’s chip toss. “And it’s not like I know her anymore. I haven’t talked to her since we finished school.”

“What happened?”

Fitz leans his chin on a palm. “Life, I guess? Bobbi went to work at some lab in the states near her mum and I was in DC, so.” He shrugs. “What is she doing back in the UK?”

“Work transfer. She’s here, _for now_ ,” he emphasises, and sighs. Fitz has a feeling Hunter’s mentally sorting through something, and he’s got to say, he’s never seen his friend so serious. But then Hunter shakes his head and rams another chip into his mouth. “Hey! Bobbi’s staying with someone from uni— Sims, Simba—”

Something coils around his lungs for a second. “... Simmons?”

Hunter snaps and points to Fitz. “ _That’s_ what it is, thank you. She’s coming, too, by the way. Really nice. Did you know her, too?”

“Yeah, actually,” Fitz says with a snort. “We sort of…” And it’s mad, because he hasn’t thought of that name in so long, but suddenly he feels his face heat up. What, is he _blushing_? “We sort of dated for a little bit.”

“What?” Hunter makes a disbelieving face and laughs. “ _Sort of_? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t that long,” he admits, thinking about it. “But we were really close before we started dating.” 

Hunter sips loudly on his drink and narrows his eyes, confused. “A ‘friends with benefits’ sort of thing?”

“No, we— it was more than that. We were good friends before, but then we started dating. Kind of. I mean, we never explicitly said it, but.” He shrugs.

“If you never explicitly said it—”

“We dated,” Fitz deadpans when Hunter shoots him a cheeky grin. 

“Well, it sounds like you _sort of_ —”

Fitz sighs and gives Hunter a face. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?” He shakes his head, a little irritated by the questions, a little more that he can’t explain it completely. He’s never had to explain his relationship with Jemma Simmons before, it just happened. "Anyway, why does it matter? It was a long time ago.” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Hunter, smart bloke, seems to sense the end of that road of questions, so he doesn’t push it. He sips noisily on his drink again. 

Fitz picks at the crumbs in front of him and clears his throat. “Do you, uh, know where she ended up?” he asks eventually. 

“Simmons?” Hunter chews for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, I think she’s somewhere in London.”

“Is she at _SciTech_?” He’s just asking casually. “We were both interviewing for a spot there for after graduation.”

“You know, I think that’s what it was, yeah. Something like that. She works near Canary Wharf, I think it was? Bobbi said she’s head of some lab now, though, smart bird.” 

“Hm.” Fitz nods politely, but his hands feel restless, like he’s trying to grip at something that he knows he shouldn’t. “Did you know she only got that _SciTech_ job because I basically handed it to her?” he says after a beat, picking at the silverware in front of him. Hunter makes a sound of interest, so he adds, “Yeah, they only had one position open, but she said she wouldn’t take it unless there was room for both of us.”

“That’s quite noble of her.”

For some reason, the reverence in Hunter’s voice rubs Fitz the wrong way, enough to make him sit back up even straighter. “More like _naïve_. I mean, I did the math — she had a better chance there, it would’ve been pointless for me to stay. So, I took the offer with _Stark_ , told _SciTech_ she had the job, and then left.” 

But when he looks up, Hunter’s staring at Fitz’s hands on the table, now semi-buried under a pile of shredded napkins. He gives Fitz a wry look.

“Well, all things considered,” Hunter says, flicking a chip at Fitz’s face again, “it sounds like you were both willing to sacrifice a lot for each other. Especially for someone they only sort of, not-explicitly dated once.”

Fitz shakes his head, ignoring the jab, and sweeps the napkin shreds into the empty _DJ’s_ bag. “Nah. This just made sense.”

“Well, what did she think about it? About you leaving and her taking the job?”

“Dunno,” Fitz says noncommittally. “We haven’t talked since.”

Hunter narrows his eyes. “So, what? She’s willing to drop the job for you and then you don’t even tell her you were leaving?” At Fitz’s blank expression, Hunter laughs incredulously. “That’s not even a _sort of_ break up, you flat out _left_ the conversation. Damn, Fitz, that’s cold.”

He knows he probably doesn’t mean it, exactly, but Fitz bristles. “We were better off this way _._ Clearly! She’s head of a lab now!”

“And you’re the Golden Boy of a big up and coming tech company,” Hunter adds. “Hey, though, this is perfect— come tomorrow and show her what you’ve been up to!”

Fitz snorts. “I don’t have to prove anything to Jemma Simmons.”

“Well, come anyway. I’m buying.”

“Wow, you must _really_ like Bobbi,” Fitz teases as Hunter busies himself with sweeping the rest of the trash into the _DJ’s_ bag.

“She drives me barmy,” Hunter replies, but he’s grinning. It’s a good look on him.

“You’ve always been,” Fitz starts, but his phone suddenly rings and shakes in his pocket, and the name reads _HR_ when he pulls it out. “I need to take this.”

“Ah, no rest for the Golden Boy,” Hunter says in solemn understanding. He waves at Fitz before he’s even stood. 

“Hey, but listen,” Fitz says, remembering why he had wanted Hunter’s attention in the first place. He leans over the table, talking low. “I have something I need you to help me with. To do with the project,” he adds when Hunter raises an eyebrow. It’ll be easier to tell him in person but his phone jumps in his hand again. “I’ll text you.”

“Yeah, sure. But fair’s fair, mate — I’m putting you down as a yes for tomorrow, yeah?” Hunter makes a megaphone with both hands to shout the last bit at Fitz as he hurries out. “Eight o’clock!”

————————

  
  


The thing about working for Holden Radcliffe is, he’s pretty unpredictable. In the year and a half since they’ve started working together, Hunter likes to joke that Fitz is getting PTSD from his phone going off at two in the morning; “Fitz, my boy, I’ve had a thought,” Radcliffe would say, and usually he did have some hare brained idea, and usually that meant another sixty hour week ahead for Fitz.

But for all that hassle, Fitz has high respect for the engineer slash entrepreneur, building _Rad Tech_ from basic scraps to then the leading technological manufacturer in London. And now Radcliffe takes vacations every other week to places with umbrellas in the drinks and his assistant calls Fitz at normal hours of the day instead. So, win-win.

“Piper,” Fitz says as he strolls up to the front desk, knocking on the ledge. “Where are those files?”

Piper pulls down her headset and spins around in her chair. “I have the files here, sir.” She picks up a fat stack of papers with a bright red stamp on the front and holds it out to Fitz. “They are ready to be signed, I’ve just been going through and highlighting the case numbers so it can be filed later.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Fitz says, holding up a hand to stop her. Piper looks at him with wide eyes. “We’re not signing today.”

“We’re not — ? I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand.”

Fitz nods and motions for her to follow as he continues the trek down to his office. Piper’s heels click loudly behind him as she tries to catch up, notepad in hand. “I have to fix a couple of things before we can sign it. And Hunter’s helping me with something, so check in with him later. But right now I need you to double check with Roxxon about the input energy levels — tell them I’m not going to accept anything under 2000.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the circuit boards need to be doubled by next Thursday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you,” he says absently, thumbing through the file. He stops again, turning to look at Piper, who is still frantically writing. “And don’t worry about the case numbers, I’ll mark them when I go over this.”

The relief on her face is instant. “Thank you. Is there anything —”

Piper’s question is cut off by the flourish of a door swinging open and Radcliffe’s undeniable laughter. “Fitz, my boy! How was lunch?” He claps a hand on Fitz’s shoulder and shakes it — his whole body seems to be shaking, his energy is vibrating through his skin.

Fitz smiles easily, adjusting his collar. “It was fine. And yours?” he adds, glancing over Radcliffe’s shoulder to the doorway of the conference room where three other suited men are watching the exchange or talking into their phones.

Radcliffe follows Fitz’s eyes and swings his hands forward to clap his palms together. “Well, we were working out shares, actually, and I had a question — you worked with Milton on this project, didn’t you?”

“He’s listed on the project files, yes,” Fitz says, but by the way Radcliffe’s smile cracks a little, there’s no question about what Fitz really means.

“Well, did he work on the project or was he just on the project files?” One of the men behind Radcliffe steps up until he’s practically squeezed between Fitz and Radcliffe. He’s as fidgety as Radcliffe, but the energy couldn’t be more different — stressed and overly confident.

“Fitz, you remember Christian Ward, one of our investors,” Radcliffe says, shifting his shoulder awkwardly so he can avoid Ward’s sudden presence.

“Sir,” Fitz nods.

“Well? Milton?” Ward demands. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

Radcliffe blinks at Fitz’s blunt answer before turning to his assistant. “Piper?”

Piper nods quickly and digs through her pockets until she finds a bright green sticky note. “He’s at the hospital again, sir — his mother —”

Ward gasps angrily. “ _Again_? How often does this happen?”

“Well, the circumstances —” Piper starts, but Ward holds up a hand to silence her.

“Radcliffe,” he starts, so loudly that everyone within twenty feet stops and looks over at the group. “Your product is solid, and I want to move forward with it, but I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know how I feel about cutting deals with you if your staff is not putting in the work for what I’m investing here.”

“With all due respect, _sir_ ,” Fitz interrupts firmly, in such a way that all questioning eyes know better than to look now, “ _my_ product is going to be worth more than anything else you will ever invest in, and I can assure you, I have no problem carrying my own weight.”

Ward seems taken aback at first, and he looks Fitz up and down again. Whatever he sees is pleasing enough because he smirks. “So you feel confident that I can put the entirety of the project on your shoulders, on your name alone?”

Fitz gives him a hard stare before giving him a stern nod. “The only way it should be.”

“Hmm. I suggest you scratch out a certain name indefinitely, Radcliffe,” Ward says, hitting Radcliffe in the chest with the back of his hand.

Radcliffe, who’d been watching the exchange with varying degrees of apprehension, starts at the whack and rubs gingerly at the spot. “Right. It may be time to look into Milton’s employment. Anyway, gentlemen, we’ll adjourn this sometime next week. Piper, can you show them out?”

Fitz shakes their hands. Ward grips his hand particularly hard, but Fitz doesn’t even flinch. When they’re a ways down the hall, Radcliffe turns to Fitz with an uncertain look. 

“Do you really think—”

“Yes,” Fitz cuts in. He sighs before adding, “with all due respect, sir, this is the third meeting Milton’s missed in a month. We’re working with government officials, and _you_ were the one who emphasised the competence of the staff. We’re not responsible for his personal shortcomings.”

Radcliffe stares for another second and then claps Fitz on the shoulder. “Well,” he says with a solemn smile, “I trust your judgement. Do what you have to do, lad.”

“Of course.” Fitz nods. He’ll have Piper do it, anyway. “Did I miss the invitation?” He tries not to let any of the annoyance seep through his words, but Radcliffe sighs again. 

“Wish I’d gotten mine,” he tells him. “They came in when you’d just left.”

Fitz resists rolling his eyes. “I had my phone on me.”

“Oh, lad, it’s not that big of a deal!” Radcliffe laughs and rubs at his chest gingerly again. “And there’ll be _no_ deal if you don’t finish the damn paperwork!” Far too obvious, Radcliffe taps on the file in Fitz’s hand and then salutes him. “Best be off, the wife is expecting a call,” and then he’s already down the hall. 

He doesn’t hold back the eye roll this time. He respects the man, he really does, but he also annoys the hell out of him, maybe just as much. He turns and heads for his office. 

The office, of course, has an absolutely fantastic view— St. Patrick’s Cathedral out one window, Westminster Abbey out the other. Not that he spends much time in here, though; the labs are in the basement. One view he is not expecting to see, however, is the tall, beautiful woman sitting in his desk chair when he walks in.

“There you are,” she says simply, but she’s smiling in an almost wicked way. “You were taking your sweet time, I see.”

“I don’t remember giving you a key to my office,” Fitz tells her, throwing his coat off and walking around the desk until he’s standing in front of her. 

“You left it open. And you practically invited me in when you started to try and do my job,” she tells him, holding out a hand for him to take. He laughs and gives her a look but adheres to her wishes, pulling her up out of his seat.

“Hello, Aida,” he says when they’re eye level.

“Give me that file, Fitz,” she orders and holds her hand out between them, her fingers brushing against his chest.

He side-steps out of her way and then takes his seat. The chair smells like her. “You’ll see it when I’m finished with it,” he tells her cheekily, flipping absently through the folder. 

“And after Hunter’s done, too, apparently.” 

Fitz pauses as he thumbs the edge of a page but tries not to show any other evidence that she’s caught him off guard. “He _is_ the legal rep on the project,” is all he says. 

“Well, so am I.” Aida is sitting on the edge of his desk when he looks up, leaning slightly so her hair is falling over half her face. She’s got that mad way of looking both alluring and alarming. “It’s not nice to keep secrets. What are you cooking up with him?”

“You can see when he’s finished with it,” Fitz says easily, keeping his eyes down. He’s not about to share this with her; that’s kind of the whole point. 

She laughs, but he knows she’s not nearly finished pestering him. They’re alike in this way: neither will stop until they get what they want. It’s why they clash as much as they get on. “Maybe I should go tell Radcliffe that you’re not letting me do my job.”

“He’ll tell you to leave me alone,” Fitz argues, swatting playfully at her knee as she scoots closer. He’s not sure if he believes that, though; Radcliffe is putty in the hands of a Kitsworth. 

“ _No_ , he’ll agree with me. I’m his favourite sister in law, after all.”

Fitz snorts knowingly. “While I’m sure nepotism is alive and well, I’m not Radcliffe, so you’ll just have to wait.” He punctuates the statement with a bright smile, uncapping a pen.

Aida picks up a stack of notepads off the desk, flipping through them. “I don’t like waiting,” she says, and while there’s no real bite to it, she sounds far from giving up. Instead, though, she leans in and drops her voice. “But it looks like you’ve been spoiled in getting your way this morning.”

At this, Fitz does look up. She smiles alluringly. “First this,” she says, placing a hand over the folder, “and now Milton.”

He gives her a look. “I don’t know if that counts as getting my way. My way would’ve had the cabbage head out a year ago.”

“Still.” The look she gives him is of absolute pride and challenging, all at once. “I was beginning to think you didn’t have it in you.”

“I have it in me,” he says with a scoff, putting down the highlighter. Their hands are both sitting on the folder, a stretch of a pinkie apart. 

“What was his excuse this time?” 

“Mother again,” Fitz says, catching her eyes and rolling his. “I don’t understand how he thinks visiting her is going to pay for all those bills.”

She hums in agreement. “Not like he’s making much with his ideas as it stands,” she points out. 

“True.” Her fingers brush his. He doesn’t move his hand away, but gives her a wry smile. “Are you going to leave me alone or do I have to get rid of you, too?”

Aida laughs. “You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?” He stands to walk over to the filing cabinet on the other side of the room. This file is more complicated than even he remembers, spread across multiple projects. 

She turns her body on his desk but otherwise doesn’t follow besides with her eyes. “You like having me around.”

He throws a glance over his shoulder. “Who told you that?”

“Well, there has to be a reason you keep inviting me over.”

Fitz walks back to the desk, drops the files, and places his hands on either side of her, their faces inches apart. “There is, isn’t there?” he says lowly, nudging his nose against hers. She leans into it, gripping the wrist of one of his hands on the desk. When he looks up, she’s staring at him under those long lashes, those blue swirling eyes. “You’re still not getting the files,” he tells her.

“I’ll take what I can get,” she returns, and wraps her arms around his neck.

Another great feature of this office is the solid wood walls, with only the opaque glass of the door allowing a peek inward. So no one sees when they both lean in and engage in some decidedly unprofessional behaviours. Not that it lasts very long, because they’ve agreed on this: the office is for work, not play. 

But it’s been a pretty good day, so Fitz cuts himself some slack. 

“How are you going to celebrate when this is finished?” Aida asks later, adjusting her hair. “Besides _DJ’s_ with Hunter, I mean, which _hardly_ counts.”

Fitz leans back in his chair, watching her fix herself and make pouty faces in the mirror by the doorway. The mirror she brought in. He almost rolls his eyes. “It counts.”

“Let me take you out for a drink. Tomorrow, when everything’s filed away.” She smiles at him in the mirror. 

“Well, if you’re offering,” he starts, just as his phone pings in his pocket. Taking it out, his heart soars for a moment before plunging. It’s Hunter, talking about the project. But Hunter reminds him— “Actually, I can’t. I have plans.”

Aida looks the closest he’s ever seen her to gaping. She even turns around to look at him, like his reflection could be lying. “You have plans?”

Fitz nods his head and looks up at the ceiling briefly. “A thing with Hunter.”

She glances at him for another few seconds, but he can see the earlier fight in her return in her eyes. “Right. Your little secret.”

For some reason, correcting her— telling her the _real_ thing he’s got with Hunter— sits in his throat. Because for one thing, he feels it’s like the first time in ages Aida hasn’t guessed, so in tune with all his moves, that it’s like a secret of his own. And the other… well, whatever they are, she wouldn’t like him meeting with other women, even if it’s only old school mates. “It won’t be long,” he promises. 

Aida regards him for another beat and then goes to stand before him. She leans in to give his cheek a slow, lingering kiss, before pulling back. “I’ll let you have this one, then,” she tells him. “Three for three.”

He smiles as he watches her stroll purposefully to the door. She gives a “ta!” as the door swings closed, the clicking of her heels fading as she walks down the hall. 

Fitz twists around in his chair and, highlighter in hand, picks at the files again. But he’s looking at the paper, reading the same line again and again, not really comprehending it, so he sighs and leans back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. 

He hasn’t texted Hunter back yet. He should because Aida will be as prompt as ever, and she’s not going to let him drop this so easily again. The thought makes him sigh. 

But he’s not thinking about Aida, not really.

No, for some reason, he can’t get his mind off Simmons. The conversation with Hunter has made him somewhat nostalgic. 

Jemma Simmons. 

He remembers her at orientation, her hand flying up in the air every couple of seconds, and they were only discussing the syllabus. She seemed as bored as he’d been, even as First Years in an advanced Physics course. She’d show up to class asking questions about concepts chapters ahead, like it was no big deal; it’d felt like a personal challenge to keep up with her. 

And then, he’d shown up to class an hour early once (some ruddy clock in the library was still on daylight savings time) and she was there, and he’d answered some question even the professor’d been unsure of. That in itself had been a pretty great moment, but the next class, instead of sitting up front like she’d usually done, she sat with him in the back. She’d been sharp witted and awe inspiring and dreadfully competitive, and they’d become best mates before the end of term. Inseparable. And three years later, high on a cocktail of achievements, sleep deprivation, and a whole lot of hormones, he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed back.

Everything else that had happened afterwards had been both a whirlwind and a highlight, and he remembers thinking, for a brief moment, that he never wanted it to end. 

But life happens. People grow up. He hadn’t been lying to Hunter: it had been the smart move to let her take the _SciTech_ job, even though it had meant moving to an entirely different country and starting from scratch. Hunter doesn’t need to know the rest of the details. 

Fitz’s eyes open and he stares at the ceiling. What is the point in bringing it all up, anyway, when it had been a long time ago, with two very different people? Why think about it when he has long since moved on with his life? Some things are just better left in the past.

“Three for four,” he amends to no one anyway.

  
  


————————

  
  


_The Hub_ is one of those rare bits of his past that has sneaked its way into his present, but it’s a welcomed one.

The old hangout hasn’t changed much in the decade long time Fitz has been going there. During his uni days, he’d been a Way Too Regular Regular, falling asleep in the booths under a pile of research grants and journal extracts. It’d been one of the things he missed the most when he was in the States, and it’d been a no brainer for Fitz to bring Hunter along when they’d become roommates a few years back. 

_Just come for a drink_ , Hunter had insisted for the hundredth time, pulling the Best Friend card and telling Fitz how much he wanted his opinion, which meant it was heading towards something as serious as Fitz had thought it was, which is a pretty scary thought, coming from Hunter. 

So here he is. And there they are. Four tables, a live band, and a bar’s length away from the entrance. 

It’s the same old Bobbi Morse. Fitz spots her through the window. She looks more ‘grown up’: less round faced, but just as pretty. Her hair is longer than he remembers it, but she’s still ridiculously tall, even sitting down and hunching over in her seat. She’s smiling coyly at something Hunter’s saying, who’s waving his hands in the air to illustrate whatever point he’s trying to make. And— surprise, surprise, it looks like he’s combed his hair and ironed his shirt. Fitz is still trying to wrap his head around how his two worlds could have collided, but the look on their faces is too genuine to question that this doesn’t make perfect sense. 

And then— there _she_ is, sitting across the table from them. Simmons’ hair is long, too, and it’s covering half her face as she turns to smile at the conversation. Gone were the days of collared shirts and matching jumpers: she’s wearing a black dress that doesn’t hide any curve, with bright red heels the same shade as her lipstick. 

But it’s really her, he’s sure of it. He used to know every look of Jemma Simmons’. It’s funny, though; an ocean has stood between them but he’s never felt so far from her than in that moment. 

The door of _The Hub_ opens and someone walks out and the rush of the hot air from inside smacks him hard in the face and he realises what a tremendously bad idea this is. What is he going to say to someone he, for lack of a better term, left behind ten years ago? Fitz shakes himself out of the trance, remembering that he’s standing and staring at the party inside and realising right then that there is no way he's going to join them.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he says to himself, turning around quickly and pulling up the edge of his jacket to hide the back of his neck in case they look out the window. “You came, you saw. _Leave_. You shouldn’t be here.”

He’ll make up some excuse to Hunter later, something about work or falling asleep, it doesn’t matter. Hunter’s so happy he probably won’t even notice Fitz’s absence, anyway. Probably. It’s a weak plan, but he’ll deal with it when it comes to it.

Fitz’s phone beeps in his pocket and dread fills him, hoping, praying, he hasn't been seen, but it’s just Piper texting him that the paperwork has been completely submitted.

Another text pops up on his phone a second later, from Aida, who no doubt had been the one to submit the file herself: _Congrats_.

 _Thanks,_ he replies, and then, without much thought, _what are you doing right now?_

_Waiting for you._

He smiles as he slides the phone back in his pocket.

Fitz speed walks back to his car. He’s not running away, he feels like he has to say to himself, it just doesn’t make sense. Going to _The Hub_ doesn’t make sense. The sun is setting in his rearview mirror as he drives away, and he catches the last glimpse of the building as he rounds the corner.

He’s still staring at the sign when he hears the honk of the car ahead of him.

————————

  
  


His head is throbbing.

And he’d just been in some dream— some teenager had kidnapped him and slapped a _Star Wars_ quote at the end of a ridiculous explanation about … choices? Fate? Who knows. She was probably just some messed up dream as a result of the— oh, _God_ , the accident! His brain is drugged up on pain medicine right now, isn’t it?

Fitz feels himself drawing nearer to consciousness. He squeezes his fingers and then his toes. Huh. So, not too bad, over all. He rubs at his arms first and then his face, searching for an IV or a bandage of some kind, but he comes up empty. All fine. A little stubbly, but fine. All he’s got is a hazy, sluggish feeling, really. His eyes flicker open.

Consciousness is a bed that doesn’t reek of that sterile, starched hospital clean. He notices the ceiling first, a pale green the exact shade of green of his bedroom walls in the penthouse. A sigh of relief rolls through his body; so maybe the accident hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought, if he’d been able to go home that night. _Had it been all a dream?_ He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, feeling none of the soreness in the movement that he thought he would. _Even the car crash?_

Before Fitz can congratulate himself for cheating a pseudo death, he becomes aware of a warm body pressed up against his side. His eyebrows shoot up. The only thing he sees when he looks down is the top of a small head, the rest of the figure tucked under a blanket. _Aida doesn’t have curly hair_ , he finds himself thinking. _Am I still dreaming?_

Gently, he tries to lift the covers subtly, but he freezes when the head lifts up off the pillow and turns to look at him. 

“Hi,” the voice says. The voice of a _child_ , with green pyjamas and wild hair and eyes staring at him like this is all completely normal. 

Fitz is trying to find his voice when another one, this time across the bed, lets out a disagreeing noise. “Mmm, no,” says a distinctively female voice this time, and Fitz sees her body turn under the covers and reach for the child. “Just five more minutes, you two.” 

The kid, a boy, turns from Fitz and giggles, and Fitz sees the outline of the woman’s fingers dig into his sides and pull him closer to her. 

Fitz looks up and nearly jolts out of the bed. He is not in his bedroom. It’s abominably small; he can barely see the edge of the bed before it meets with a dresser, stacked with folded laundry. He swallows hard and glances at the bedside table, where an ancient alarm clock sits next to a picture frame that boasts the blurred outlines of four people. There’s also a worn leather wallet that isn’t his, and a shitty watch, _several_ notches below his own Omega. 

With a splitting headache, Fitz tries to piece together the last bit of his memory that he has of last night, but anything after the accident is nonexist. He’d blacked out, and then? Went home with some woman? From the looks of the cookie cutter nightmare of a room, a _married_ woman— with _kids_ , no less? 

He doesn’t have a moment to swallow the wave of nausea that hits him before the kid turns and looks up at where Fitz is sitting on the edge of the bed now. “Dad’s up, though! Can we have pancakes today, Dad?” 

There’s not a moment to respond before the little boy is bouncing on the mattress, closing the space between him and Fitz, and practically jumping on top of him. But just as fast, Fitz is leaping out the bed and, in his haste, loses his balance and rams his back against the wall behind him. The night stand rattles violently, the picture frame toppling over. 

“Be careful!” The woman bolts upright and onto her knees the next instant, reaching to wrap a hand around the boy’s shoulder and steady herself on the mattress with the other.

It’s when the room stops spinning that Fitz finally catches sight of her face. The bright brown eyes, the freckles, the cropped mop of curls. His jaw drops. “ _Simmons?_ ”

Jemma Simmons tucks her hair behind her ear as she stares blearily at him and adjusts the scoop of her shirt where it’d fallen to reveal her shoulder— _his_ shirt, he realises, the one with little rocket ships plastered all across it. He hasn’t seen either of them for a _decade_. “Fitz, are you alright?”

“What?” is all he can get out, the pounding blood in his ears making it sound like he is underwater.

She gives him a concerned look and opens her mouth, but a wail sounds off in the distance and she turns towards the door. “Someone wants to join the party,” she says and scoops up the boy in her arms. She throws another look at Fitz over her shoulder but doesn’t say anything before leaving the room.

Fitz, mid panic and adrenaline rush, shakes his head and smacks his face a couple of times. He’s still dreaming, this is still part of the dream from before. But then he feels something cold against his face and pulls his hand back to see —

A ring. On his left hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's your favourite kind of burger (if that's your thing)? I had one with beets on it once and now I can't really eat a burger without them.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me (I hope)! 
> 
> Find me [here](http://scriboergosums.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to stop by!


	3. Back!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz runs into some new faces and some old faces as he tries to figure out where in the world he is. A better question is _when_ in the world is he?

It takes Fitz about three hyperventilating seconds to decide he needs to get out of there. 

He tugs the ring off and places it on the nightstand and then does a quick scan of himself and reevaluates. Trousers. He needs trousers first. 

There’s a pile of clothing on the dresser against the wall; he shifts through all the llama prints and pink clothes until he finds a pair of dark slacks and a cardigan, and he decides for his sanity he’s just going to ignore the fact that both things seem to fit him so well. 

Fitz opens the door of the room in a frenzy, quickly finding and donning the stairs and stops himself in the middle of a hall. He still has no memory of this place, and it’s so disorienting, he’s not sure if the room itself is spinning or it’s just his head, his eyes clouded and his temple thumping. Through the blur of his vision, there’s clear evidence of a family everywhere he looks: a set of keychains on hooks next to the door (one with a duck printed lanyard, another with monkeys), a pair of children’s rain boots by the bench of the front door, a myriad of family photos lining the walls….

Something catches his eye and he turns to see a framed photo of three on the wall closest to the stairwell. The purple of the gown is what drew him in, but having taken a second look, he realises it’s because the picture itself is familiar— he knows what it is. Bobbi, Simmons, and himself are smiling candidly at the camera, either looking at the sky where their purple caps are flying or to the ground where it landed. Gold cords sit around their necks and they all have that face of baby deer optimism. Graduation day. 

_Who did you see today? Someone you haven’t seen since you graduated?_

Fitz jolts back from the picture at the thought. But that’s a mistake, because his eyes are finally focused enough and he can’t help when they land on the next frame. He sees his _own_ face staring back at him, replicated again and again and _again_ — smiling, laughing, perfectly at ease in the middle of scenes that could be straight out of a Hallmark movie, it’s so disgustingly mundane.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, no, no, this isn’t real. I’m still dreaming.” He rakes a hand through his hair as he squeezes his eyes shut. “Think, Fitz. _Think_.”

“Think about what?”

He spins around so fast, his feet slide on the carpet and he grabs the stair railing to keep from tripping. 

Simmons is biting back a smile when he catches sight of her face. “Goodness, you’re jumpy today. Go easy on the caffeine,” she says, full of laughter and teasing. 

He knows he’s technically just seen her moments ago, but he still gapes at the sight of her. Jemma freakin’ Simmons, standing here and _laughing_ at him, like it hasn’t been a decade since they’ve so much as been in the same _city_ , let alone room. He wants to ask her what the hell is going on but he’s shell shocked, the words jumbling into a pile of nonsense when he tries to open his mouth. 

Her face scrunches up as she regards him curiously. “Are you going out?” 

Fitz opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Yeah,” he finally manages, though his voice breaks on the word. “Yes,” he tries again, and it takes all his mental strength to get it out. _Why is his brain so fuzzy?_

“Could you please pick up the drycleaning on your way back, then? I know I said I meant to last night but I lost track of time reading Becca’s notes.” She smiles unabashedly, obviously not very sorry about the whole thing. “And can you bring raisin bagels, too, while you’re at it?” 

“What?” It comes out like a croak. From her spot on the stairs, it’s like she’s towering over him and it feels alarming because everything she just said makes as much sense as someone willingly eating _raisin bagels_ — so, not at all. 

Simmons narrows her eyes and tilts her head. “Are you sure—” she starts, but there’s a _thud_ and then the sound of wailing. She immediately turns and stalks back down the hall. 

Fitz doesn’t wait for her. Jemma freakin’ Simmons is here and she’s talking to him like that’s not as insanely mental as it is. He isn’t sure where he’s going, but he snatches a pair of keys from a peg and toes into a pair of trainers by the door because he just knows he needs to leave _now_. For whatever brain blockage is making him stumble over his words, his adrenaline is kicking into high gear.

He bolts out the front door and sprints on a rock path that leads to a drive, narrowly avoiding tripping over several hundred shrubbery and a few lawn gnomes on the way. The path curves around to reveal a pile of silver scraps with wheels bearing a BMW insignia. A car, supposedly. 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Fitz groans, fidgeting with the keys in his hands, because they’re shaking so hard right now. He tries to stick the key into the lock and jiggles with the door handle for fifteen seconds before slamming his palm against the window in agitation when it doesn’t open. 

“Hey, Fitz?”

Fitz jumps at the voice. His heart hasn’t stopped beating bruises against his ribs since he woke up, and that’s done nothing for him but cloud all his other senses, and he’s getting really tired of jumping at every damn sound. 

A tall, dark man in a t-shirt is watching him from behind a hedge that’s separating them, a stack of papers under one arm, a cup in the other, and a clearly entertained look on his face. “You alright there, Turbo?”

Fitz opens his mouth but nothing comes out. What a loaded question. 

“I’m fine,” he manages, feeling anything but. 

“Jemma and the kids, too?”

Fitz glances back at the house when the man points to it. “Yeah, they’re fine,” he says, closing his eyes and shaking his head a little. It helps him think. “Yeah, I just— I need to go and figure this out. Do you know where I can find my car,” Fitz starts, and squints at the paper in the man’s hand, just making out the name on an envelope, “Alphonso?”

The man smiles wryly. “Man, I don’t call you Leopold for a reason, don’t make me start.”

Fitz stares at the man; that kind of comment seems far too intimate for someone Fitz has quite literally just met. The same bubbling irritation at Simmons’ nonchalance simmers under Fitz’s skin again, and if his mind would stop spinning, he’d have demanded an explanation. As it is, he’s barely seeing straight. 

“Right.” Fitz tries to make his mouth resemble something less of a grimace. He tugs the handle of the car again to no avail and curses under his breath.

“Is something wrong with the Volkswagen?” the man asks then, folding his arms over his massive chest, staring down at him.

“What?” 

Not-Alphonso raises his eyebrows. “Your car?”

“This is a BMW.” Geez, he’s talking to idiots.

The man watches him and responds slowly, enunciating the words. “I’m talking about the Volkswagen in the driveway.”

Sure enough, there’s a blue Volkswagen at the edge of the cobbled driveway. But the comfort of seeing it is almost completely cancelled out when Fitz notices the houses surrounding him, with their coloured mailboxes and matching fences. Nothing but suburban uniformity for miles. 

“Where _am_ I?”

“Home.”

Fitz turns to gape at the man. “How far is this from the city?” 

His eyes widen. “Southampton’s not more than a ten minute drive.”

 _Southampton_? Why would Fitz care where Southampton is? “Great,” Fitz eventually says, at a loss. They’re going in circles.

Not-Alphonzo perks up one side of his mouth into a half smile, but when he talks, he sounds more worried than he looks amused.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Fitz? You sound like you’re still dreaming.”

More like having a nightmare. “I’m going to go— figure this out. I just need— to go.” Fitz stares for a second before nodding once and making for the other car. 

“Whatever you say, Turbo,” he hears behind him but he’s already taking off into a sprint. 

The only thing working in his favour right now is the door opening on the first try and Fitz lets out a cry in relief when he sees that the tank of gas is almost full. He almost wants to roll down the window and tell the neighbour not to tell Simmons where he’s going, but the man’s not in his yard when Fitz backs out onto the street.

————————

Southampton _is_ only ten minutes away— the sign welcoming him to the city is a faded wooden plank, much like the rest of the seaside town.

What’s _not_ so faded is a road marker that claims London is an hour and a half away. If it wasn’t for the honking behind him, Fitz would’ve driven straight into a bookstore on the corner in his surprise.

He’s so out of it, still, and his anger rises to the surface, that his vision tunnels until all he can see is the asphalt; the kilometer count to London on road markers decreases as his speedometer increases, and he feels like he can breathe again when he sees the skyline of buildings in the horizon. 

_Rad Tech_ , with its marble lobby, artificial plants littering the entrance, and a really unflattering three meter tall photograph of Holden Radcliffe hanging over the security desk. All of it hits Fitz in waves of alleviation. _Finally_ something that he recognizes.

He practically skips up to the security desk. Only one officer is at the entrance at the moment, sitting in the chair with his head bent low, staring at a computer screen. The gate to go to the lifts is locked.

“Davis,” Fitz asks, skidding to a stop and leaning against the front desk.

The man in question jumps in surprise, spilling a cupful of pens across his keyboard, and then stands, turning the screen of his computer away from Fitz. “Can I help you, sir?”

“What day is it?” Fitz glances around at the emptiness of the building. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s the weekend, sir. Normal business hours are Monday through Friday,” Davis replies quickly.

“Right,” Fitz says with a nod. “Do you know if Radcliffe is in? Actually —” Fitz pushes away from the desk and walks over to the gated entrance, Davis quickly following him from his side of security. “I’ll go check myself.”

Davis gives him a look like he’s in pain or something. He doesn’t open the gate for a full twenty seconds before Fitz glances warily at him. “Davis, open the gate.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he says immediately, “I can’t do that.”

Fitz glares. “Why not?”

“I’m going to need to see some ID,” Davis insists instead. “Do you have an appointment?”

“ _Appointment_? Why would I need an appointment?”

“It’s part of the visitor protocol.”

“Visitor—” Fitz repeats, and shakes his head. “No, no, no, not you, too. You see me _every day_ , Davis.”

But Davis is relentless. “Name, please?”

“Davis. This is not funny.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I need your name—”

“Are you—? _Fine,_ I’ll play along. Leopold Fitz.”

Davis clicks at the computer keys. Without looking up, he says, “spell it?”

Fitz grits his teeth. “L-E-O-P—it’s _me_. _Fitz_ , Davis.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not in the database.”

“What? I’m—I’m the _head_ engineer of _Rad Tech_.” Fitz leans over the security desk and reaches for the computer screen. “Let me see—”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you—”

“—come _on_ , you can’t be _serious_ —”

“—don’t want to ask for assistance—”

“ _There_ you are!”

Fitz and Davis, hands full of the other’s clothing for two very different reasons, both turn at the sound of a voice and the clicking of shoes against the marble behind them.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Fitz!” The girl has latched onto one of Fitz’s arms and tugs at him before either man can fully release the other, so Davis rams into the desk ledge and squeaks in pain as she pulls Fitz away from the security booth. “You move fast— I thought I’d have at least a few hours before you fled to the city.”

Fitz looks down. “No. _No_.” He shakes his head violently and tries to pull his arm free of The Teenager from Hell. “Get away from me. Davis—”

“—excuse us for this little episode,” The Teenager interjects, tugging on Fitz again, _hard_. 

He feels the ground under his palm, and it takes him a second to realise that she’s tipped his balance in the scuffle so he’s half kneeling.

She winces. “My bad.”

Davis opens and closes his mouth like a faulty drawbridge and rubs at his upper arm but otherwise doesn’t move as the girl helps Fitz back up to his feet. 

“ _Ow_ ,” Fitz hisses and swats at her hand. “Let go of me!”

“It’s time to _go_ , Fitz,” she says through clenched teeth. She keeps an iron grip on him, even as she’s kicking the door open with her foot and waving at Davis. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“You’re _sorry_? Why are you even—"

“Not _you,_ I’m talking to the nice security man you just harassed,” she says and gives Fitz one final push out the door.

He stumbles down the front steps before catching himself and throws her a glare. “What are you made out of?” He rubs at his arm that is sure to have hand sized bruises all over it.

The Teenager rolls her eyes. “I barely touched you.” She jumps down the stairs and strolls past him, waving a hand. “Come on. The parking meters here are _ridiculous_ and I didn’t have time to get any British money.”

Fitz gaps at her. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he tells her fiercely, and turns back towards _Rad Tech_.

“Suit yourself, but I wouldn’t try going back in there.” She’s not even looking at him as she speaks. “I’m not going to be the one dragging you out next time.”

Her words sound like a threat, but not from her. He looks back at _Rad Tech_ and sees Davis through the glass, pointing him out to another security personnel. Both men regard him suspiciously.

Heat floods Fitz’s face, and his vision swims again. The place he could navigate in the dark doesn’t recognize him in broad daylight.

A honk startles him and he whips around. The girl is sitting in the drivers’ seat of the Volkswagen now, a pair of sunglasses on the tip of her nose. She leans across the passenger seat and waves out the window. “Come on!”

Fitz clenches his jaw and pushes his sleeves up as he marches over to the car. “You—you—” He stops at the passenger side and leans over the open window. “What is happening? What—why did I wake up in the _suburbs_ with _Simmons_ and — and Davis doesn’t— why am I not in the database? What did you do?”

His mouth, as suspected, isn’t working as fast as his brain still, so most of the gusto in his voice comes out winded and frantic, and not at all menacing like he hopes. He can’t see the girl’s eyes, but her lack of any other facial reaction is not encouraging.

She lowers her chin until she’s looking at him over the top of the sunglasses. “Get in.”

“Wha— _no_ , I’m— I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what is going on!”

Her lips press into a line. “Fitz. Get in the car so I _can_ explain.”

He shakes his head. “Tell me right now.”

But then a door opens behind him and he sees Davis, the coward, pointing him out to the other guard, who locks eyes with Fitz and looks ready to stomp the life out of him.

“Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but you’re not going to hear _anything_ I say if you don’t get in the car in the next two seconds,” she says.

“Yep.” Fitz pulls the passenger door of the Volkswagen open just as the security guard picks up the pace and makes a beeline for them. “I’m going to regret this— I’m _already_ regretting this—”

He’s cut off when the girl yanks the car in reverse and pulls away from the curb so fast, the tires smoke.

“That’s the spirit. Hey, do you know how to get to Kings Cross from here?”

She throws a hand over the passenger chair to look behind her and then grins at Fitz when she rights the car, who can only muster out, “why?” breathlessly.

“I parked my van back there.”

“Why do we need—”

“Right or left?”

Fitz grips the front dash and blinks at the passing road markers. “Take a right in two blocks. Why do we need to get to your van?”

“Because” is all she says, and Fitz winces when she abruptly jolts into the other lane and a series of horns sound off behind them.

She tugs off the sunglasses. “Whoops.”

“Are you even allowed to drive? Legally, I mean?” 

She doesn’t look away from the road, but she still manages to give him a side eye. “I’m completely legal. Just not used to driving on this side of the road. Cut me some slack.”

“I’ll try,” Fitz says flatly, and a particularly hard brake makes him lurch forward and reminds him to put on his seatbelt. “Am I dead?” he asks then, sitting and turning to stare at her. “Because I can’t think of any other reason why all of this is happening.”

“You’re not dead. Or dreaming. Or on drugs,” she adds when he opens his mouth.

“You sure? There’s some pretty strong psychedelics— brake. _Brake_!”

The whole car jerks forward when The Teenager slams her foot down, and then jerks again when she hits the exhaust in a similar fashion, narrowly turning the car before it rear ends a semi. She drives up the curb before Fitz grabs the wheel and redirects the car back onto the road.

“This is ridiculous, pull over.” Fitz keeps his hand on the wheel, but she shoves it away with her shoulder.

“Shut up, don’t make me kill you again.”

“ _Again?_ ” 

“I’m kidding! Sorry— too soon, I get it. Calm down.”

“How can I?” he complains. “I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but this, you know that— _none_ of this makes sense, and you’re the only one—”

“Right or left?”

“Right. And you’re the only one that seems to know who I really am, but I don’t even know who _you_ are. How do you know me? What did you do to me? You said—”

“I said I’m going to explain,” she says, her face serious. “But like you pointed out, driving’s not my strong suit, so let me park the car before more damage is done. This car doesn’t have the best insurance.” 

She takes another turn where the car almost rams into a post box, but Kings Cross is suddenly in view. Fitz feels his stomach flop when she pulls into a spot next to a van— _the_ van, he knows it immediately. He doesn’t move when she shoves her door open and jumps out.

“Fitz?” She sticks her head back into the car a moment later.

He takes a breath. “Look, I have a lot of money. You can have as much as you want, just please, stop whatever this is, and I promise I won’t press charges.”

Graveling is a new low, but he’s desperate.

“Wow, okay.” Her head disappears as she straightens, but a second later she returns with a steely look in her eye. “This is not something you can buy your way out of, which, I know, is shocking and new to a white dude, but. Please stop embarrassing both of us and get in the van.”

She says it all in a breath, like she’s at the end of her rope. “It will remain stationary, I promise,” she adds, and holds out a hand.

Fitz huffs. “At least there’s _that_.” He shoves her hand away and gets out of the car.

The Teenager pushes the van door open with ease and gives a reassuring smile that Fitz tries not to sneer at as he gets in. The folding chair is waiting for him like a bad omen.

She closes the door and the space is enclosed in darkness for a second before something glows— her watch. Except this time she moves her wrist around and then glowing blue codes are floating around them. She presses something in the air and a voice beckons _Area Secure_ and Fitz thinks he hears a lock shift into place behind him.

He presses himself against the back of the chair and watches the floating words blur by as she flicks her finger in the air, like she’s sorting through something, even though it looks like random shapes to him. “Who are you?” he wonders aloud.

“The name’s Sky. Sky with an ‘e’ at the end of it, if you’re spelling it in your head.” The floating blue bits stop and she pinches the air and a particular set of garble enlarges, and then she clicks something else, and all of a sudden the ambient noises from outside are gone. “Okay, we should be good now.”

Fitz blinks, a couple thousand times. “Wait, I’m sorry— _who_ are you?”

She leans over and presses a switch near his shoulder and the light in the middle of the ceiling turns on. She flicks her wrist again and the circle of blue disappears.

She smiles. “That’s a little harder to explain. There’s a non-disclosure contract as tall as me that safeguards what I can say, so bear with me if I start to sound like I’m playing Taboo.”

“Non-disclosure?” That sounds so official. Fitz had been picturing some rogue troublemaker, not someone who’s governed, much less _follows_ , documentation.

“Yeah, you know, sworn to secrecy. Didn’t Hunter ever teach you any lawyer stuff?”

“You know Hunter?”

Skye shrugs. “Not as well as I know you, but, sure, I know Hunter.”

She’s trying to be casual, all normal and calm, and he knows it’s probably for his sake, but he’s done with the bullshit. “And how is it that you know him— or me? What do I have to do with… whatever it is you’re sworn to secrecy?” He folds his arms. “You said you needed my help.”

“Yes,” Skye says, and she sounds hesitant. She checks her watch again and shakes out her shoulders. “Okay. Ahem. So. I’m assuming you know about the fourth dimension.” She waits until Fitz nods, which he thinks he vaguely does. “Energy and… the quantum realm? Nod if you’re with me.”

He nods.

“Right, duh, who am I talking to.” She seems to be muttering more to herself. “The quantum realm is— it just _is_ ,” she says simply, her face thoughtful. “Time and science— they’re all just constricts humans made to try and understand space, right? And black holes are— well, I can’t get into that too much, but they also just _are_ , as far as we know.”

She flicks at her watch again and what Fitz thinks is meant to be a black hole floats between them. “Okay. Time and black holes. They’re hard for us to measure within our realm of natural laws. But! We do know the law of thermodynamics. The first law —”

“No energy is created and none is destroyed,” Fitz supplies instinctively. He regrets it when Skye opens her mouth wide. “What, am I not allowed to talk?” 

But she beams — _beams_ **_,_ ** with teeth and all— and shakes her head enthusiastically. “No, yeah, exactly right. So, because of that, we know that any and all black holes out there can and do, or _don’t_ exist, because of that balance.”

Fitz hasn’t heard it explained quite like this before, but she doesn’t sound horrendously wrong, so he just nods.

“So we can use the energy balance to track black holes—”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you,” Skye says automatically, and shrugs when Fitz frowns. “No, like, I really can’t tell you. It’s far more complex than I can understand— on top of, you know, also first explaining a lot of other stuff I _legally_ can’t—”

“I get it.”

She nods like she’s shaking something out of her head. “We can track the black holes, and when you can track them, you can find them. And if you can find them, you can _use_ them.”

When she doesn’t go on, he realises she’s waiting for him to piece something together. He starts to ask why anyone would want to _use_ a black hole, when it hits him. “You can use them to distort time.”

She smiles again like before, but not in a condescending way. She almost seems _proud_ of him, which seems even more bizarre. “Exactly.”

“Wait. If black holes can distort time— time _isn’t_ just there?”

“Well.” She makes a so-so motion in the air with her hand. “Even if it can be distorted, there’s something _to_ distort, right? But,” she says louder when Fitz wants to argue, “the most important thing is the _something_ that’s doing the distorting.” Skye takes a breath. “What I do… with my organization, we monitor… causations. Or at least try and track them.”

“How?”

He’s surprised when she doesn’t deflect and she says, “Energy, mostly. Thermodynamics, stuff like that. The universe is constantly trying to balance itself out, and that leaves a trace.” And then she looks straight at him, and it’s not with the fond, affectionate look. “And that’s where you come in.”

He balks. “ _Me_? How?”

“Well, first of all, you lied to me.”

Fitz scoffs. “When?”

“I asked you what you did yesterday and you completely ignored the part where you were going to have dinner with Jemma.”

His face floods with heat and he sits up, the chair creaking beneath him. “I— well, that’s— that wasn’t really— no, I don’t have to explain that to you. But — you were _spying_ on me?”

Skye isn’t fazed by this. “I opened the door for you to go in, and you turn around.” She throws her hands up. “Go figure.”

“So you _kidnap_ me? Because I lied about going to dinner?” Did it even count as a lie if he’d just _forgotten_ about it because, hey, _he was hit by a car?_

“Because you _didn’t_ go to dinner,” she corrects. “And for the record, I didn’t kidnap you so much as I saved you, by the way. That car would’ve flatlined you. Which, by the way, also would’ve been your fault.”

“What? What are you even talking about?” Fitz sits at the edge of the chair until he’s basically squatting, and it’s uncomfortable, but at least he’s towering over Skye now. “Tell me what you did to me.”

“Technically, you did it to yourself.” She pushes herself to sit up straight so they’re eye to eye again. “You were supposed to meet up with Jemma. And when you didn’t, this is what happened.”

Fitz waits for the rest, but she just glares. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, just so I understand: you kidnap me—”

“—saved—”

“—because I didn’t go to dinner with Simmons, and… that is why I woke up in Southampton.”

She nods. “You threw everything off balance. And _big time_ , because I’ve been watching your dimension for a while and I’ve never seen that black hole, so you were lucky I got there when I did.”

“Stop, just stop.” Fitz shakes his head wildly. “No, I don’t— I’m not buying this. No. You’re _insane_. I made a black hole because I didn’t go to dinner with Simmons? No. I mean, I-I haven’t even talked to her in ten years!”

“Exactly!” Skye glares right back at him. “I asked you, remember? About what you did after university? You were supposed to stay with Jemma, but you didn’t, so this was supposed to be your way to balance things out, but then you made the wrong decision, _again_ , and this was the universe’s way of compensating.”

Fitz presses his palms against his eyes and inhales for five seconds. “Listen,” he says, calmly and slowly, in hopes that this poor deranged soul will finally understand. “You are in need of some serious help. I don’t know where you can find it, but if you let me go, I’ll try to get some for you.”

“Shut up, Fitz.”

“I admit, the black hole stuff was really convincing for a second— you really did your research, knowing I minored in physics— but this is done. I don’t know how much you paid Simmons and Davis, either, but tell them the gig is up.”

Skye just stares at him, her shoulders tense. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“ _Y_ _ou’re_ being ridiculous!” Fitz rubs at his temples, a headache brimming again. “You’re telling me that my decision to not talk to Simmons after ten years has somehow thrown off the balance of the universe. The _entire_ universe. That I created a black hole by not going to dinner. How am _I_ the mad one in this scenario?”

“Fitz, you’re a smart guy,” Skye says. He feels her hands hovering over his wrists, like she’s reaching out to pull his hands down. “Think about this. You seeing her again is not a coincidence. Hunter and Bobbi, people from completely different worlds, suddenly hook up and want their respective best friends, who just _happen_ to be you and Jemma, to meet up?”

“That’s not the same thing. Them dating has nothing to do with my ‘making a wrong decision’ or whatever bullshit,” Fitz argues. “You make it sound like— time or-or whatever is _fate_ or something, and I refuse to believe that.”

“It is literally my job to follow these things,” Skye starts, and Fitz is seriously tempted to stick his fingers in his ears at this point. “And I’m telling you, that is what happened. Don’t believe in fate, I don’t care, but this is the _truth_. You were supposed to stay with Jemma, and your decision not to is why you’re here.”

Fitz scowls, glancing up. “Here? Where even _is_ here?”

Skye falters for a moment, and then, “you’re in the timeline where you never left.”

“What?”

“Fitz never left, I mean. The first time. So you’re in the right timeline,” she adds, but she’s talking under her breath, and her eyes are wide and unfocused. “You’re in the right timeline, but you’re still _you_ , which means…” 

There’s a split moment where both of them are quiet and just watching the other, and he can practically hear her trying to hear what he is thinking. The thing is, he’s not thinking of anything, because he can’t think over the sound of his brain screaming. 

“Skye,” he hears himself start to say, but she’s up and crossing the space before he can get anything else out. “Skye, what are you talking about?”

She slips behind the curtain, muttering to herself; part of him wonders if he should follow her, but she seems manic, even for her. It’s another two seconds before she’s back in the room, anyway, but he can see immediately that something is wrong. 

“This doesn’t make sense,” is what he can make out from her, her head bent over a tablet and her fingers frantically swiping again. She alternates between the tablet and her watch and Fitz sits there for a good minute, watching, because his head is still swimming in pain. 

“Did you do something to my head?” he asks with a hiss, clutching at his temples. “It hurts like a bugger.”

Skye’s shuffling stops in front of him suddenly, but instead of answering, he feels her hands on his shoulders and suddenly he’s pulled to his feet. “Get out,” she tells him. 

“Wha— really?” He staggers upright, Skye steading him with one hand and opening the van door with the other. She jumps out and pulls him along with her, straightening his cardigan. He pushes her hands away. “You’re letting me go?”

“I’ll come back,” she says. “But I have to figure this out, it’s pretty bad.”

“I mean, I’m glad you’re admitting to that, but I’m still confused. Where am I?”

Skye is absorbed with her watch again. When she speaks, she sounds panicked, and she doesn’t even look up at him. “Go back home and wait for me there.” 

“Wait for you? But where are you going?” 

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” she tells him instead. “Not even Jemma.”

“Okay, hold on, Skye,” he starts, trying not to get whiplash from her sudden change in mood. “Wait, you still need to explain—”

“I’ll be right back,” she says, climbing back into the van. And then, as an afterthought: "don’t do anything stupid.”

She shuts the door and the van’s exhaust immediately starts. Fitz barely has a moment to step back before the van starts to shimmer, and then, right before him, it fades out of vision.

He squints at the spot. When he reaches out to touch where the door had just been, all he feels is air.

He whips his hand back and holds it to his chest. Fitz shoots his eyes around, but all he sees is the busy crowd of pedestrians coming and going from Kings Cross. Behind him is the blue Volkswagen.

He stares back at the spot where the van was and rubs the back of his head.

What the hell.

“I think,” he says to no one, “I need a drink.”

————————

He doesn’t go home.

Well, he kind of does, but like everything else today, it only serves to confuse and irritate him more. Skye would probably count it as doing something stupid.

He first goes to a bar, but only after spending a half hour combing through the bottom of the Volkswagen floor for change, having no wallet on him. The bottom of the car, by the way, is covered in Gold Fish pieces, small pink rubber bands and expired coupons for milk, but hardly any money. In the end, he barely has enough for a fiver; he must really look like he’d been flatlined by a car, because the bartender gives him a shot of Mezcal instead of the lukewarm beer he knows he can afford.

The alcohol sits funny in his stomach but, for the first time ever, he doesn’t want to eat. What he’s really hungry for is some sign that he’s not completely mad, so he needs to push every point of this nightmare. His and Hunter’s place is the closest in this part of the city, so he walks there. The doorman —O’Brien, who Fitz is not surprised doesn’t remember him, he forgets him daily—rings up Room 616 for a Mr. Lance Hunter, sure enough. Fate had done no rewiring there. With dreadfully optimistic expectations, Fitz buzzes in and explains his long, rambling predicament through the intercom. A thoughtful contemplative pause meets him, Fitz hopeful.

And then a burst of wild laughter. Hunter’s voice rattles out of the speaker. “Oi, it’s only two in the afternoon, pal. Too early to be this piss drunk. But kudos on making it a tear jerker, very moving. Cheers.” _Click_.

Fitz stares at the glass revolving door for a while, seriously considering bashing his head in. It couldn’t hurt more than it already does. Davis eyes him warily, and he’s pretty sure the woman on a balcony across the street is on the phone with the cops, so Fitz eventually drags himself away from home, shoulders slumped and stomach turning endlessly.

He wanders around aimlessly for a while. He also forgot to grab any sort of watch or phone, so he has no idea what time it is when he finds himself back at Kings Cross and crawls to lay down in the back seat of the car. This is where he last saw Skye, so maybe he should just wait for her to show up again.

But his stomach, and head, and entire being feels restless and miserable, and he knows that he’s avoiding doing what Skye had told him to do, more out of spite than anything else at this point. _Go home_ , she’d told him, and he can’t think of anywhere less he’d rather be than back in _Southampton_.

He wonders if he’s desperate enough to eat the Gold Fish, but the idea is so disturbing he slides up immediately and decides, this is _bullshit_ . He’s Leopold James Fitz. Head engineer, multi-millionaire. He’s going to go back to that godforsaken wasteland of a town and _demand_ Simmons explain what she and Skye have done with his life.

When he sees the Southampton sign again, both the gas tank and sun are getting pretty low. He drives down a street and is about to turn onto another one when he notices that pile of scraps of a BMW in the carport again, and he manages to turn at the last second onto the drive, parking the car jaggedly.

There’s a low murmur of voices coming from some part of the house he can’t see when he closes the front door behind him. He manages a step before a head pops around the corner.

It’s the boy from this morning. 

He grins ear to ear when he catches Fitz’s eye and bolts around the corner and down the hall, snaking his arms round Fitz’s legs for a moment before stepping back and looking up at him with big blue eyes.

“Dad!”

The voices are replaced with gasps and shuffling feet, and then three more faces appear in the doorway. Fitz makes out the neighbour’s tepid face that dissolves into a half smile when he notices him. Beside Not-Alphonso is a woman half his size, but she does not have the same easy expression as the man, sticking Fitz with a raised eyebrow and a thin-lipped frown.

The third face is Simmons, who rushes towards him faster than he can take stock of her, and he’s confused about so many things, like why he’s here and suddenly being pulled into a tight hug.

“Fitz! Are you alright?” She pulls back just as fast and cups his face.

The rehearsed speech dies in his mouth. His skin is hot where her hands hold him. “I—”

“Where have you been?”

“London,” he manages. 

Simmons widens her eyes and drops her hands. “London? Why?”

He looks away from her piercing stare, full of worry and confusion, and peers over her shoulder. The other adults hover awkwardly behind them, having barely taken a step from the doorway. The kid is watching next to them.

The neighbour suddenly moves. He scoops up the boy and flips him over his shoulder, eliciting a chorus of laughter. “Hey kid, I have to show you something,” he says. Fitz doesn’t miss the wink he throws Simmons as he opens the front door and disappears into the dark.

The woman quickly follows, placing a hand on both Simmons and Fitz, but only giving a nod to the former. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”

Simmons nods. “Thank you.”

And then the door closes. 

The air is static.

“Fitz,” she says after a beat. He doesn’t look up. “What’s going on? I tried calling you all day.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t bring a phone.”

He can sense her eyes on him, but he still can’t make himself meet them. “Mack said you ran out of here in a daze. I thought you were in trouble. What happened? Why were you in London?”

Something about her tone feels like he’s being chastised, and it makes his skin crawl.

“Because I _live_ there,” he snaps, and when he finally does looks up, her mouth is open, her eyes wide again. “This isn’t my life. I’m an engineer, I work for _Rad Tech_ , and — none of this is mine. Me and you— we haven’t talked in a decade! This isn’t my house, or-or my shoes, or—”

“Oh, Fitz.” She rolls her eyes. “And that car out there isn’t yours, either, is it?”

Fitz glowers. She is hitting every button, like they’re back in school and she knew so much better. “Yes,” he says, defiantly. “And I don’t like— _Mack_ or whatever, either, if he’s going to just spy on me.” 

Simmons scoffs. “Stop it.” She moves from the door and picks up the jacket he’d haphazardly tossed on the entrance bench.

“Stop what,” Fitz says hotly, following her with his eyes.

She gives him a look over her shoulder. “What were you doing in London?”

“I was trying to figure out why I woke up here. Because, like I said, this isn’t my—”

“Not your life, yes, I understood. You’re so _hilarious_ , Fitz. Thank you for taking responsibility for the panic you put me in all day.” She thrusts open a closet by the stairs and shoves his cardigan on a hanger with fervor. “Mack and Elena cancelled their plans so they could stay with the kids all day and I could look for you. I don’t know how many places I looked and—” She swings the door shut and sighs, rubbing at one eye with the back of her palm. “And now you won’t tell me what you were doing?”

Fitz resists groaning. This feels a lot like screaming into a void. “I _am_ telling you. I woke up and— well, first I had an accident yesterday, and then, when I woke up, I was _here_ for some reason, and I tried to go to _Rad Tech_ , but I couldn’t, and, then, what’s her face said—”

“Are you drunk?”

“Wha— _no_.”

Simmons stares incredulously.

“Simmons. I’m serious.” Fitz holds out his hands, as if they could reach the words that aren’t coming to him, evidence he can show her. “This isn’t some lark. I know it sounds mad, but I don’t know how else to explain it.” He shakes his head and pleads, “this isn’t my life.”

Skye had singled Simmons out when she’d told Fitz not to talk about what she’d told him. She must’ve known Simmons would be the only one with enough sense to see the truth. When Simmons doesn’t react immediately, he thinks he can see her working everything out, and, for a moment his breath hitches in anticipation.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Well, I’m sorry your life is such a disappointment to you, but that still doesn’t excuse you for leaving without telling me. I was worried all day, Fitz.”

Fitz’s stomach turns again.

He is not Leopold James Fitz, an engineer at _Rad Tech_ and genius millionaire. He’s tired and miserable and seriously angry, but he’s not Fitz. At least, not to these people. And maybe he’s drunk and can’t tell, but the look in Simmons’ eyes is too genuine to be a lie. He’s not sure where that leaves him, except _here_ , in whatever place Skye’s left him.

“What’s there to tell.” He throws his hands up. “Nothing happened, I couldn’t do anything. I’m _stuck_ here, apparently. There, you happy?”

A heavy moment passes. Fitz waits for Simmons to roll her eyes or continue to dig into him with her steely tone, but suddenly her eyes flash and the anger simmers out and something softer and regretful replaces it.

She covers the space between them in the next moment, and, to Fitz’s surprise, instead of strangling him like he’s expecting, she wraps her arms around his neck again, pressing her face into the crook of it.

Fitz’s hands unconsciously settle around her waist when she doesn’t immediately let go.

“I’m happy you came back, and that you’re safe,” she says against his skin. “Everything else doesn’t matter. Okay?”

He nods without much conviction, standing in quiet shock. 

She pulls back from his arms and a flicker of a polite smile crosses her face. It looks kind of painful. “I’m going to go get Emmett.” Before she closes the door behind her, he catches her eyes and she adds, “but Fitz? You’re not the only with disappointments.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply and just leaves him standing alone in the hall.

He’s still contemplating what he’d missed in their exchange, hours later, when he’s hyper aware of her curled figure a few feet away from him in the bed he’d woken up in that morning.

When the sun starts to rise through the blinders, he eventually remembers: Skye never came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I adore you all <3 Find me [here](http://scriboergosums.tumblr.com) if you'd like! :)


	4. Even

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz spends a day with his 'new' family.

When he wakes up in Southampton again, he admits that this probably isn’t a dream.

Simmons is already gone by the time he breaks subconsciousness, so he takes the moment to stare at the pale green ceilings— pretending he’s really back home— and just thinks for a bit. 

Skye’s convinced this place is his _destiny_ or whatever, but all he’s seeing is a mess. He runs through the list: in the span of ten years, Fitz and Simmons go from being top of their class, graduating early with offers from multiple corporations, a bright and endless future red carpeted in front of them… to living in a old seatown, rubbing elbows with kids in a creaky old suburban home, next to nosy neighbours, and driving cars older than his mum. He hasn’t found out what either he or Simmons do for a living, but obviously it’s not something lucrative if _this_ is home. 

He turns to face the watch sitting on the bedside table, seeing all the dents and scratches, and yearns for the Omega Aida had given him. It really is the little things in life, isn’t it?

Part of him debates refusing to leave the room, maybe even demanding real answers from Simmons and company, but he knows that’s futile. Yesterday was a complete disaster. They really think he’s this Other Fitz, and he doesn’t like his odds going up against all of them. So he can only see two options playing out: one, he sits in here and waits for Skye to show up for God knows how long to put his life back together; or two, he plays pretend as this sad pathetic Other Fitz until he can get everyone to snap out of this charade and he can sue them all when he gets his life back. 

Yeah, that could work. 

He would laugh if he isn’t so overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. As it is, his stomach growls so loudly, it wakes him up fully, and he takes that as his cue to get on with it. 

Dragging himself out of bed like a man doomed to death row, Fitz stands wearily in front of the closet in the room. He thumbs through the hangers and decides that the Fitz of this timeline must either be completely blind or really, really depressed. Probably both. Ten years later, and he’s somehow still wearing patterned button downs and cardigans. The set of drawers in another corner of the room just reveals a stack of old band t-shirts and joggers. With a defeated sigh, Fitz slips on a pair of dark trousers and a dotted button down. He begrudgingly remembers to take the wallet and watch from the bedside table before creeping downstairs. 

Clangs of dishes and raised voices travel down the hall and he lets the wafting smell of breakfast and caffeine guide his feet to the kitchen. 

Simmons has a phone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she sets a plastic tray of various cut up food on the high chair in front of a toddler, who in turn looks up when Fitz walks in the room and watches him passively before picking up a fork sideways. 

“You may need to reset the parameters on the NMR. Or make a new slide,” Simmons is saying into the phone, her eyebrows turned down in deep concentration. She notices Fitz a second later and gives him a distracted welcoming smile, pointing to the stove. “No, no, I’m not saying you’re _wrong_ ,” she insists, “you might just… need to check again, is all.”

Fitz feels himself grinning at the obvious attempt of a friendly letdown as he walks to the stove. He goes for the kettle first and opens the nearest cabinet, hoping it’s the right one or he’ll look doubly foolish, but he’s surprised when he finds his way around pretty effortlessly. Everything’s arranged like his cabinets back home. He pulls out a mug with a cat plastered on one side. It looks as grumpy as he feels. 

“No, I’d use the proton FID.” Simmons is sitting in front of the child when Fitz turns around. She adjusts the fork in her little hand. “Good job, Lucy,” she whispers softly, and then frowns off into space again. “No, I don’t— honestly, Callie, I’m not really following, I think I could help you more if you’d just email me the procedure. It’s hard to navigate this when I’m still trying to wake up.” 

He can’t hold back the snort this time. Simmons? Not awake when it’s near nine in the morning? Unfortunately, he takes a sip right then and has to cough into his fist to clear his throat. When he looks back at Simmons, she presses her palm to the mouthpiece and whispers, “are you alright?”

“Fine.” He swallows and motions to the phone. “Continue.”

Simmons stares another second and then nods. “No, that was my husband. Oh, he’s fine. Go on.”

 _Husband_. He glances at the ring he'd also replaced this morning. That might be the strangest part of this whole thing. Certainly one of the most unbelievable parts, anyway.

Fitz turns around when she starts watching him. What would Other Fitz do? Well, he knows what _he_ would do, with a stovetop covered in breakfast items. If he has to act like he belongs, he’s got to eat. He finds a plate easily and stacks it with a little of everything, and then stands there awkwardly. He makes for the table eventually, seeing no other way around it.

“Of course, Callie, I’d be more than happy to take a look. Yes, please send it to me.” Simmons smiles at the girl— Lucy— and then stands. “Yes, I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”

Fitz winces when the chair makes a horrendous screech as he pulls it out from the table, but no one looks up, like this is usual. He feels about a thousand shades of awkwardness and unease as he takes a seat and sets the plate down. 

Lucy swipes at the eggs on her tray and eats in silent concentration while Simmons scrolls through her phone for a moment before disappearing to another room. Fitz takes a few hesitant bites— good _Lord_ , is he hungry— while still watching the other two cautiously. He has no idea how he’s meant to behave, but he hopes it’s convincing. 

Simmons returns a few moments later, her hair pinned back and a laptop in hand. She sets it down on the table and starts typing away, only occasionally stopping to wipe the corner of Lucy’s mouth or take a swig from a thermos. 

Last night he’d been too caught up in the moment of his shock to take a good look at her, but she’s so close now, Fitz can’t help but stare. This Simmons looks more like the one he remembers from their university days, not as dressed up as the one from _The Hub_ he’d caught a glimpse of the other night. That one had a tight dress and her hair was twice as long, but the one before him is in a sea green jumper and black trousers, padding around the kitchen in flats. 

But otherwise, she doesn’t seem to have changed much. Ten years has been kind to her face and figure— not that Fitz is too surprised; she’d always been the prettiest girl in their class. Part of that, though, had been her sheer optimism and constant smiling, and that seems to be missing a little. There’s a bit of agitation now, a sort of restlessness, to the way this Simmons moves around. 

“Are you alright?” he asks before really thinking about it. 

Simmons looks up as if in a daze, and then the corner of her mouth quirks up. “Yes.” She rolls her eyes playfully and makes a face. “Don’t say I told you so,” she says, and Fitz raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Lesson learnt: no more calls from the lab on the weekends.” Simmons doesn’t wait for a reply before standing and taking the laptop with her— “after this one, I promise”— and disappears out of the room again. 

Fitz eyes her departure with more interest than before. A lab? She’s talking to a lab? Well, that’s something, at least. A lab that she’s directing others in, as well. But then why are they in Southampton? What kind of lab would she be working at if it isn’t one of the bigger labs in London? Maybe _SciTech_ has a branch out here? 

A cry of delight catches his attention, and Fitz glances over to Lucy across the table, who is currently arranging her apple slices in a neat line on the edge of her high chair. 

Objectively, the kid is cute, but he can’t wrap his mind around what her literal being implicates— namely, that she’s a mix of Simmons and him. It’s an odd mix of genes, in any case; the little girl has wavy blonde hair, the same shade he’d had growing up that darkened eventually. The eyes are Simmons’, the exact colour and shape, and when Lucy smiles, her mouth looks nothing like his. But he sees his own mother’s features in the slightly upturned nose and rosy cheeks. The thought makes him sentimental. It almost touches him. 

Lucy must sense his stare and looks up. Fitz smiles hesitantly, half expecting tears to answer back, but the toddler grins and tilts her head, all bashfully. She reaches forward and does a weird half wave at him, and he thinks she wants him to do something in reply but it’s like he’s lost all feeling in his hands and can’t lift them from his lap. It’s just too foreign, too weird. 

_I’m not your father_. 

The thought echoes through his mind and Fitz shakes his head to stop it from spilling out of his mouth. It’s like Fitz has taken over a different man’s life. He’s filled another’s shoes and gotten rid of the original model, like a Body Snatcher or something, and no one’s in on the secret. Even Skye thinks he’s being ridiculous. Nobody understands. 

The sudden feeling of loneliness fills his lungs like molasses, his bones sinking in the weight of it. He takes a long, tongue burning sip of his tea and squeezes his eyes shut to keep the headache at bay. 

A clap of hands startles Fitz from his reverie. He opens his eyes to find Simmons walking into the room, sans laptop. She’s twisting around as if she’s looking for something before her eyes land on a notepad on the table. 

“Ah, there it is.” She smiles at Lucy as she picks it up. “Oh!” Simmons glances over her shoulder at a clock on the wall. “Time to go pick up Emmett.”

Fitz looks around. Somehow, he has failed to notice the other kid’s absence. He’s a natural at this parenting thing. 

“From where?” he asks, bewildered. 

He knows immediately that this is obviously the wrong thing to say; Simmons looks both confused and worried as her hands still around the notepad and she tilts her head. “Next door. Did you forget?”

More like never known. “Oh,” is all he manages to say with her looking at him like that. It would be pointless to argue this. “Right.” Neither of them move for a moment until Fitz realises she’s waiting for him to do something, so he stands awkwardly, pushing in the chair to waste more time. 

Simmons moves deliberately towards Lucy, side-eyeing him as she collects both her tray and Fitz’s empty plate and drops them into the sink. “All done?” she asks Lucy, who responds with another hand motion from her chair. “Let’s clean those hands, okay?”

It’s too weird to be here. He’s mucked it up too much. Abandon mission: Normal. “I’ll just—” Fitz says, pointing to the room behind him with his thumb. 

Simmons hoists Lucy out of her chair before looking up at him. “Yeah. I don’t know where I’ll be when you get back, I have to rearrange my schedule for today.” 

The last bit is said with a definite tone but she turns around to wash the toddler’s hands in the sink and doesn’t see the look on Fitz’s face. It’s a dismissal if anything ever was.

 _Right_.

  
  


————————

  
  


Emmett is a ball of energy, it turns out. He’s actually bouncing in the open doorway, a carton of apple juice in his hand, as Fitz makes his way across the lawn and up the stairs of his neighbours’ house. He just gets to the door before the kid is latching onto his arm and dragging him back down the stairs. The neighbour— Mack, Fitz remembers— comes rushing out of the door and waves a stack of books at them and then Emmett is dragging Fitz back up the porch to retrieve them. 

“Sorry, Hope showed him where we keep the juice. He’s only had two, though, promise,” Mack says with a laugh and a wave as Emmett is, once again, off for the races. “We’ll see you tonight!” he calls when they’re at the end of the drive. 

The thing Fitz has ‘forgotten’ is apparently a weekly walk to the library. Emmett hands Fitz his juice carton so he can fully grasp onto the books and read off the names, giving a little summary about each one and rating them based on the appearance of wolves.

“This one has boys running from wolves so it’s brill, and this one has 100 dogs but no wolves, and this one had a lion but no wolf again. They were _dull_. I like when they have wolves, even though Mum says a wolf is not the only good part of a story, but I think so.” He looks up at Fitz and nods like this is the wisest thing ever said.

“That’s… neat, kid.”

“I asked Lucy what books I should get this week and she said green, so I’m going to look for green books, but Hope said I should look for authors named Green, too.”

“Good idea.”

Within ten minutes, the kid has offered Fitz an insight into his mind. Apparently when one is five, life fits into two categories: something can either be _brill_ or _dull_. In some cases, one thing may be both, depending on the circumstances; for example, sleeping can be brill if it's a late bedtime, but dull if it’s a forced nap. 

Fitz tries to smother another laugh. Emmett is something else. 

When they cross the street into the downtown, Emmett thankfully leading the way, Fitz tucks the books under his arm and accepts the boy’s hand. Emmett doesn’t drop his hand until both feet are on the pavement again and then Emmett wordlessly reaches out to take the books back and the talking resumes. Resumes and stops and resumes again, as Emmett greets every stranger on the walk. To Fitz’s surprise, most of them reply back just as fondly, asking after ‘the family’, patting Fitz’s shoulder and ruffling Emmett’s hair. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, but apparently very normal. Fitz is starting to be overwhelmed, none of the faces sticking in his mind, sure that his expression is anything but welcoming.

They pass by a sandwich shop and the wisp smell of fresh bread makes Fitz’s stomach growl. He really hasn't been eating his fill these last couple of days. An idea strikes him:

“Hey, do you want to grab a bite to eat?”

Emmett stops in the middle of the pavement, narrowly causing a woman to trip over him, and turns to Fitz with wide eyes. He’s about three seconds from jumping up and down, isn’t he? “Yes, yes, _yes_!” 

Fitz takes his hand quickly and drags him out of the way, apologising to everyone behind them as he holds the door open to the shop. Emmett stops again in the middle of the doorway and Fitz nearly curses as he has to side step him quickly so as not to ram into him. 

“I was afraid you wouldn’t be back yesterday because Mum was upset and you were fighting a lot, but I’m really, _really_ happy you came back because I’m going to order crisps and put carrots on my sandwich like Nana showed me.” 

Fitz’s mouth opens. He stares, dumbfounded. And then he remembers to nod. Emmett grins and reaches out to cup his hand in Fitz’s again, dragging him to the register with all the confidence of a regular customer. 

They sit in a corner booth ten minutes later, but Fitz is too fascinated to eat. He watches the boy meticulously straighten out his area before he bites into his sandwich. Emmett gingerly dusts crumbs from the corners of his mouth and fervently insists that Fitz lays out a napkin onto his knees. 

“It’s how they do it in fancy restaurants, Dad.”

“Right.” _Why not._ Fitz places the napkin down and looks back up. 

Emmett is inspecting the back of a sauce bottle as he sips on water (he’d tried to bargain another juice carton but Fitz is not strong enough for that kind of terror again) and Fitz can’t help but study him like he’d done with Lucy. The boy bears a striking resemblance to _his_ younger self. His general colouring and hair are darker than Fitz’s had been, but he’s got the same curly hair and stormy blue eyes. Gangly and freckled. Well, the freckles also aren’t his, but even so, Fitz has the sensation of digging out a time capsule and peering into his past. 

Except the boy is sociable. He barely stops to take a breath. For the most part, anyway; he insisted on Fitz ordering for him as he stood behind him, only speaking up to thank the clerk by name when the sandwich was finished. Besides that, Emmett seems effusively chatty, just a hint of Fitz’s old shyness. That’s what Fitz is counting on now.

Fitz looks across the table and hesitates. “Hey, Emmett?” he starts. 

“What?” Emmett replies after a huge gulp of water. 

“You said… earlier, I mean… that your mum and I fight a lot.” He narrows his eyes. “What did you mean by that?”

Emmett shrugs. 

“But you said so.”

“You started fighting when you came back from that trip.”

Fitz frowned. “What trip?”

“The business trip. Mum said it had to do with work, but I told Mum that’s impossible because you already run Granddad’s shop so you already _have_ work. And then she laughed when I told her about that time Granddad left a bunch of lemons on my bed when I was at school, even though I’ve told it to her a bunch of times. I think Mum just likes to laugh, so she laughed when I told it again.”

Fitz rakes his hand through his hair and fixes the boy with a stare. One issue is replaced by another. With detachment in his voice, Fitz echoes: “I run Granddad’s shop.”

“Mmhmm. Mum’s dad, not _your_ dad, because Granddad Fitz is dead.”

“.... Thanks, Emmett.”

“You’re welcome,” he chirps happily. 

“What’s the shop called?”

“ _Simmons’ Sips_ , on the corner of 3rd Street and 17th Avenue.” Emmett smiles widely, obviously anticipating a compliment for his memorization skills, and, to be fair, he would’ve gotten one if Fitz hadn’t been so preoccupied. 

The name strikes a chord with Fitz. The business had been in the Simmonses family for nearly two decades — well, now _three_ , isn’t it? What on earth had possessed him to take over Robert Simmons’ family heirloom of a shop? Why had his own dreams been dashed to dust? Simmons gets a lab and he gets this? He cradles his head in his hands. 

“Why do I run Granddad’s shop?”

Emmett sips loudly and answers, bored, “because Granddad had that heart attack and Gran made him retire.”

Fitz looks up, mouth dropping open. “When was that?”

Emmett shrugs. “I don’t remember.”

“It happened before you were born?”

Emmett shrugs again. 

Fitz sits back, unfairly annoyed, but annoyed all the same. He bites his fingernail to keep from snapping. 

Maybe Skye would know. Yeah, she has that tablet, she could probably fill in some major blanks— whenever she finally decides to show up, that is. 

“Come on,” he tells Emmett. He scarfs the sandwich down quickly before jumping to his feet; Skye doesn’t know where he is now, so he’s got to keep moving. _Go home_ , she told him before. “Time to get going.” 

The roundtrip to the library is a little more than two hours, and Fitz fidgets the whole way; speed walking to the building, grabbing the first ‘green’ books he could find, and insisting on carrying Emmett on his back when the kid starts to crash post juice high. By the time they’re back at Simmons’ place, Emmett is fast asleep. 

The house smells like fresh air and flowers, and the stack of shoes by the doorway is thinner than it had been this morning. A note on the benchtop brings him up to speed once he drops Emmett on the couch in the sitting room:

> **F —**
> 
> **With E and the girls shopping. Parents coming for dinner, please bring in the extra chairs!**
> 
> **P.S. You forgot your phone again; there’s a few messages for you on the home phone.**
> 
> **P.S.S. I forgot the P.S. goes after the closing.**
> 
> **I love you,**
> 
> **— J**

_I love you_. 

…. She loves him?

He pours himself the last of the now lukewarm tea from the kettle. The note reveals nothing new the second time he reads it, but he still feels like he’s missing something. A catch. Eventually he folds the note and tucks it into his pocket.

  
  


————————

  
  


The wine is definitely necessary. 

Fitz helped himself to two glasses already and they’ve just sat at the table fifteen minutes ago. 

No one is complaining, though Simmons has arched an eyebrow and Mack takes the bottle to pour himself some and leaves it on his side of the table. The only ones who seem not to be walking on eggshells around him are Simmons’ parents. 

A decade had not been as kind to them as it had been to her; both have more salt than pepper in their hair, and crows feet etched into their skin. Robert seems just as warm as Fitz remembers him; only, his movements are slower and his frame more filled out, though he still displays this air of coolness, like he couldn’t be bothered to fret about _anything._ It’s a healthy way to live, if not somewhat detached. He’d always reminded Fitz of Simmons, just a little less passionate, a little less driven. 

His wife, Nora, though, throws Fitz off for a loop. Back in university, he’d always felt like she was calculating him, like she was giving out marks for whatever he was doing: the way he’d taken her hand when they’d met— six out of ten, by the way she raised an eyebrow. The way he’d used a pudding spoon instead of a soup spoon that one time at Christmas— four out of ten, no question about it. Whereas Robert had made him feel welcomed almost immediately, he never felt like he’d been in Nora’s favour. 

But she smiles when he’d open the door that night, a small but real smile. She’d only tutted in good humour when she’d gone into the dining room and the chairs were haphazardly placed (that’s what happens when a five year old is the only source of knowledge in the moment), rearranging them without fuss. For the first time in their acquaintance, Fitz wondered if the wrinkles around her lips are laugh lines, not something sinister like he’d always thought.

It’d been the last straw of Fitz’s attempt to endure this family dinner sober when Nora called him _Fitz_ instead of Mr. Fitz, something she never _, ever_ would’ve done in reality. 

Ten out of ten, he needs to get out. Where the bloody hell is Skye? 

Fitz reaches over Mack to repossess the wine, but Simmons’ hand suddenly rests on his knee and he jumps before he can pour another cup. 

“Do you want some?” she asks him, and it takes him a moment to realise she’s holding out a bowl. 

“Couscous,” Robert murmurs in that soft, deep baritone of his. “It’s like wheat, right?”

“I always thought it was more like rice,” Simmons says with a smile. She silently offers it again to Fitz, and he takes a spoonful without much thought before handing it across the table to Robert.

“Granddad!” 

Fitz turns to watch as Emmett barrels into the side of Robert’s leg, using his grandfather’s thigh as a support to push on and hop in place. Robert scoops a portion of couscous onto his plate and passes it along before picking up Emmett and settling him on his lap. 

“How can I help you, my boy?” Robert turns Emmett so he’s sitting sideways on his lap and he can use his hands to eat and still watch the boy. 

“I learnt a new word,” Emmett proclaims, smiling brightly. From this angle, though, the curve of his grin has a hint of mischievousness. 

Sure enough, there’s a groan behind the party over by the hob, where Fitz can see the neighbour’s daughter (no one bothered with introductions because, obviously, he’s supposed to know everyone already). She has a textbook and notes spread over the surface, highlighter in one hand, fork in the other. “No, you didn’t,” she declares without looking up. 

Emmett widens his eyes and bounces, waiting for the teen to stop talking before he tells Robert that he _really did_ in earnest. 

“You don’t know what it means, Emmett.”

“I do! I figured it out.”

“Nuh uh.”

“I did!”

“What’s the word?” Robert interrupts between spoonfuls. The rest of the adults are murmuring amongst themselves, but Fitz takes another sip of wine, the edges of his mouth perking up as he watches. That kid is a _handful_. 

“Fascinate,” Emmett tells Robert, enunciating each syllable like he’s trying it out in his mouth. 

Robert swallows and _mmm_ ’s, appropriately impressed. “And what does it mean?” 

Emmett looks over Robert’s shoulder at the teen, who’s taking a bite of dinner and raising her eyebrows, daring him to prove her wrong. Emmett glances around and Fitz can physically see his panic. He eventually fixes his eyes on Robert’s button down. 

“It means, um, it means that...” he hesitates, tugging on the garment. “You have ten buttons on your jumper, but it’s too small,” he says, “so you can only fascinate.” 

Maybe it’s all the wine, but Fitz flat out laughs when he gets it. It’s a little louder than he anticipates; Simmons starts, jumping at his side, and whips around to stare at him. Her hand lands on his knee again, and heat jolts up his leg. _Definitely_ the wine.

“What’s going on?” she asks, her smile growing as she glances between Fitz and Robert. 

“I think I should lay off sweets for a while,” Robert explains with a surprised guff as Emmett scurries off, undeterred when the neighbour girl tells him he’s got it wrong. 

“That reminds me,” Mack says loudly from down the table. “Fitz, who’s sponsoring the shop for next month?”

“Oh, I hope it’s the cupcake lady again,” his wife says with reminiscing eyes, stroking Lucy’s hair from where she sits in her lap. “ _Magnífic._ ”

All eyes are on him in another instant, and not even the lull of the alcohol can mask the terror that shoots up in him. His face probably mirrors panicked-Emmett. “Uh. I don’t…” Fitz looks over his glass and furrows his eyebrows. This isn’t a conversation that he can half arse his way out of. It’s too specific. He makes the grave mistake of turning to Simmons. 

She smiles friendly enough, but something in his face must tell her how uncomfortable he is because her hand retracts and folds into her other one. “Dad, aren’t you going to ask Roz?” she says instead.

Robert looks off in space, concentrating. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He pushes his plate away and sighs. “ _Sponsors_. We used to call it partners. And the new register is a technical nightmare, with its keypads and locks and finger scanners.”

“Good,” Nora says, dapping at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “It keeps everything organised, not like the wreck it was before.”

“Thank you, dear,” Robert says with a smirk. “Twenty years of blood, sweat, and tears and it’s now a _wreck_.”

“That’s not what she means,” Simmons defends instantly, though the comment is obviously good natured; the rest of the table laughs. “You left it in great shape, Dad. Fitz just streamlined it a bit, that’s all.” 

Mack and his wife hum in agreement and Nora smiles gently, adding, “he refuses to believe the shop can live on without him.”

“Well, believe it, Dad,” Simmons says quietly, and Fitz feels her side-eyeing him— gauging him, really. “You don’t have to worry anymore; it’s in good hands.”

Robert must say something in reply, and the conversation must continue on, but Fitz doesn’t hear much else after that. No one seems to want to bother him, thankfully, so he seeps into his wine coloured thoughts. 

So he’d taken over the shop when Robert’s health had taken a turn, huh? From the way the family spoke about it, the way Nora warmly regarded Fitz— he must have stepped in and offered to take it from his father-in-law’s hands himself, hadn’t he? Maybe even before they were family. That has to be it, Fitz is sure: he’d willingly taken ownership. No one had forced him.

Fitz traces the rim of his glass with a fingertip and then tosses it back. Bad idea; the world is spinning again. One last glance at the front window — nothing, of course — and he abruptly stands up. The table members look at him and he’s not drowning in enough alcohol yet to not understand their worried eyes. 

“Bathroom,” he supplies when it seems necessary, and then shoots down a hall, hoping he’s going in the right direction. 

After a few minutes, he sticks his head out the doorway, making sure the party is distracted, before darting across the hall; luckily, it’s not a bedroom or anything else that would be questionable to find him in, and the window faces directly out onto the house front. 

“Come on, Skye, where are you,” he whispers as he clicks the lock carefully. He means to make his way to the window but the room distracts him. 

Hold on, this — this room almost looks like… _his_. 

The desk is expansive, with two drawers on either side, the table top a shiny laminate, perfect for writing. The same dark wood continues onto the shelves on either side of it, stacked with volumes and scraps of papers and a little TARDIS acting like a book end. Just above the desk is a lamp with a movable arm and above that, a wire line with things hanging off it with clips — blueprints, drawings, pictures. 

It’s the exact same furniture set he’d bought for his very first flat when he’d moved to the States, right down to the — yeah, the old desk chair is here, too, and it still squeaks when he tries to spin in it.

But how...?

Skye had said this place is simply a different timeline, but that meant it was still _him_ , in some shape or form. Even still, it makes Fitz want to weep for several reasons.

The armchair in the corner is new, though, along with the bookshelf on the other side of the room, filled to the brim with books for children. And there’s pictures everywhere, too, and drawings taped to the edges of frames. 

Fitz leans over a shelf and snags what looks like a photo album. Crooked, scrapbook photos of his third year at university greet him; he smiles a little as he flips the pages. His old roommate, Enoch, giving him that cryptic stare that Fitz could never quite understand; his classmates and him standing in front of the engineering building after turning in their dissertations; so many blurry photos of him smiling, his hair ridiculously curly. 

And Simmons. She’s on every page. That one time they wore sweaters the exact shade of blue without planning it and Bobbi made them take a picture; when she’d surprised him with a two meter tall stuffed monkey that cost more to ship home over the summer than a term’s worth of textbooks; her head on his shoulder during a road trip, at a science convention, at a pub in the middle of the night during finals’ week. He can almost remember these moments, if he shuts his eyes. 

But it’s too much to think about now. A headache is starting to form behind his eyes again, his temple thrumming when he presses it. With a forceful snap, Fitz shuts the album and leans over to replace it on the shelf when he notices a row of discs marked with different dates on the shelf above. 

“Fitz?”

The startled yelp he gives off would’ve been embarrassing enough if he hadn’t gone and almost fallen out of the chair as well. 

Simmons opens the doorway wider and takes a step closer towards him, but he shakes his hand at her. “Are you alright, Fitz?”

“I’m fine,” he croaks, wiping imaginary dust off himself. This is getting out of hand. 

Unsurprisingly, she watches him carefully and waits until he’s steadied before continuing. “Mack’s brought out some cake, but he and Elena are heading out now.”

“Okay,” is all he can come up with. 

“My parents are leaving in a mo, they’re just putting the monkeys to sleep.”

Monkeys? Oh, the kids. “Right, uh... yeah.” 

She grins slightly and motions with a hand. “Come help me clean up, please?”

The Simmonses leave ten minutes later, whispering goodbyes and taking a plate of food, Nora surprising Fitz again, this time with an affectionate pat on the face before closing the door behind her. All the leftovers are sorted, stacked, and put away, and Simmons lets the dishwasher run as she refolds Fitz’s sloppily folded tablecloth. The kitchen is tidy but lived in, everything somehow fitting together, and Simmons moves around without even really looking as he watches from his perch at the benchtop by the back door. 

“You didn’t want any cake?” she asks over her shoulder as she drops food scraps into a separate container under the sink. 

Fitz shakes his head. 

“Are you looking for something?”

“What?” he blinks at her. 

She motions to the front of the house with a tilt of her head. “You were staring outside the whole night.”

Heat seeps into his face and he starts worrying his hands in front of him. “Ah — no.” 

The sentence hangs between them awkwardly.

“I think you helped finish off the wine,” she eventually says.

“It was good wine,” is his weak response. 

“Not really,” Simmons laughs. She flips the kitchen lights off so the only light is coming from the hallways leading to the stairs. 

The side of his mouth twitches and he glances down at his feet. She’s still staring at him when he looks back up, her brown eyes roaming over him, but she doesn’t speak. 

How strange is this, he wonders suddenly. How strange must his behaviour seem to Simmons, especially if what Skye says is true about destiny and he and Simmons are supposedly _in love_ (the note feels like it’s burning in his pocket). But he can’t help it. He _isn’t_ her husband. He’s _not_ a father. That man, the man who had taken the route of helping others over himself — that man had up and vanished, because Fitz sure as hell is _not_ that man. 

Simmons steps forward and replaces a towel on the bar of the stove. She sighs quietly and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m going to bed,” she says. “See you upstairs.” At that, she rises on her tiptoes and, before he can react, kisses him softly on the corner of his mouth before padding down the hall. 

Fitz leans back against the benchtop with folded arms. He should say something, shouldn’t he? _Why does he feel like he should say something_?

“Simmons!”

She stops on the stair landing. “Yes?”

“I, um,” Fitz rubs the back of his neck. “I like Emmett. A lot. I didn’t think I would at first, since I’m not that great with kids,” he babbles, “but, uh, he’s really. Well, he’s something, isn’t he?”

Simmons’ teeth are visible in the dark as she beams. “Glad to hear it. Maybe we’ll keep him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's your favourite pun? I can't remember where I found the one Emmett used, but it's currently mine, haha!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's read, commented, and left a kudos, you warm my heart! 💕
> 
> I'm working on posting chapter graphics over on my [Tumblr](http://scriboergosums.tumblr.com/tagged/Moving+Dream), if you'd like to see!


End file.
